RUBBISH-STREWN scenes like this one may be an all-too-familiar sight by Tuesday morning, as the city gears up for a bumper bank holiday weekend generating 24 tonnes of rubbish per day along the seafront.

This photo was taken by a frustrated resident after a group of young revellers left dozens of bottles, cans and discarded food wrappers across Hove Lawns despite assuring him they would clean up after themselves.

Meanwhile council staff have installed additional bins and appealed for responsible merrymaking in advance of the three day break.

Hove architect Roland Rigliani was walking his German Shepherd puppy when he passed a group of teenagers enjoying the sunshine on Hove Lawns.

He told The Argus: “They said ‘what a lovely dog’ and I explained that when people leave food and chicken bones and mess he eats it and then it makes him sick, so I asked them politely to make sure they took their litter with them.”

The 54-year-old, who lives in Brunswick Terrace, recently had to pay more than £100 in vet’s bills when his 6-month-old puppy Monkey became ill after eating discarded food.

He said: “They were very polite and said yes of course they would, but I walked back that way later that day to see if they’d left their rubbish behind. And low and behold it was everywhere.

“They’d even collected it into piles but they couldn’t be bothered to carry it 20 yards to the big bins. What prompts people to treat our public spaces like this?”

The council is encouraging everyone to take responsibility for their own litter this Bank Holiday weekend, as they gear up to deal with vast quantities of litter.

A total of 24 tonnes of refuse per day were collected last bank holiday weekend from the beach and seafront alone.

Fifty additional large yellow bins have been installed on the beach and on popular green spaces like the Old Steine and Hove Lawns, with another fifty waiting to be used if necessary..

Cleaning crews work 5am to 10pm seven days a week, and empty litter bins on the seafront and in the city centre several times each day - and 20 extra staff are taken on from April to September.

City councillor Gill Mitchell, chair of the city’s environment committee, said: “Cityclean do a great job keeping places clean and collecting rubbish, but if everyone picked up just one piece of litter it would greatly help keep down the volumes we see left behind following a hot weekend.”

A spokeswoman for the South Downs said that their biggest litter problem is people bagging their dog mess but then throwing the bag into hedgerows or trees.

She said: “Our message is please come to the national park, it’s a beautiful resource and it’s free, but please take your litter home with you so everyone can enjoy it.free.