Alex Dunlop/BBC/Julia JamesJill Boyle said she could not understand why people would come to enjoy the beauty of north Norfolk and leave their rubbish behindAnger about the "disgusting" scenes at a beach following a busy bank holiday weekend has sparked calls for people to take responsibility for their litter.
After a weekend when temperatures surpassed 30C (86F), extra clean-ups were carried out at Cromer in Norfolk on Tuesday that took up to 26 hours.
Jill Boyle, Liberal Democrat councillor for the town, said: "I think it's disgusting. I just don't understand why they would do it.
"They come to enjoy the beauty of north Norfolk, why would you wish to decimate it? It's just beyond me."
North Norfolk District Council said additional bins had been placed around the beach in anticipation of high visitor numbers.
In all the years Boyle has lived in Cromer, she said she had never seen the beach packed with so many people, with concerned friends and residents sending her pictures and videos of the litter left behind.
"I was cross," she said. "This is a Blue Flag beach, it's just awful to think people with their children, dogs, the wildlife, have got to be put aside for people who don't care.
"How can you come onto a clean beach and just walk off and think to leave it there? I just don't understand the mentality."
Julia JamesBoyle said while the council put extra bins in place, they could not predict the "chaos" that happened last weekendShe said if bins were full, people could have left waste by the sides of the bins instead of scattered across the sand.
Boyle believes the council did everything it could and could not "predict [the] chaos" like the scenes on Monday.
She said: "[Visitors] can carry the bags home, they can carry the bags to another bin, they can put them by the side of the bin — the volume of people was just unprecedented.
"What have we come to? It is so beautiful here, it's just inexcusable."
ContributedNorth Norfolk District Council has urged people to dispose of waste responsiblyIn a statement after the weekend, North Norfolk District Council said broken bottles and foil packaging were among the items discarded on the beach.
It said "bins can often fill up faster than they can be collected" during peak times and pleaded with people to "dispose of waste responsibly".
Julia James, who lives in East Runton, said she immediately put her dog on the lead when she saw the beach covered in bottles, broken glass, beach blankets, chairs and rubber rings.
She said: "I was just disgusted. I was horrified. I teach my kids to have respect, it was just disrespectful and people not caring. Who do they think is going to clear it up?"
She said it looked like there had been a "rave".
Alex Dunlop/BBCJulia James said Cromer locals "couldn't believe" the state the beach had been left inJames said: "I feel really blessed and privileged to live here and when people treat it like that we are all horrified.
"We as locals couldn't believe people would come and do such a thing."
After pictures were posted on the BBC Radio Norfolk social media pages, a number of people shared their disgust and said the council should enforce fines or start patrols.
One woman who visited the beach over the weekend with friends said she had to remove a number of disposable BBQs from the beach.
She said: "While sitting and chatting we realised the flints we were sitting on were extremely hot... some thoughtless, careless people had just buried three disposable BBQs which were still glowing red! Absolutely disgusting behaviour!"
Serco/NNDCLitter left on Cromer beach meant the council had to spend two days removing the wasteAnother commenter said: "Every time we go to the beach we end up picking up other people's left behind rubbish and take it with ours, really is sad to see how much rubbish just gets left behind."
Others pointed to similar scenes at other sites across the county, including Wells-next-the-Sea.
A spokesman for the town's visitor information centre posted images of overflowing bins on Facebook and said there was a "huge amount of litter", urging people to take rubbish away with them if bins were full.
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