Rubbish weighing as much as three double decker buses was left strewn across Brighton beach on the messiest weekend of the year.

Brighton and Hove City Council said staff removed more than 23 tonnes of rubbish from the seafront over the weekend.

One of the council’s army of workers cleaning up the beach yesterday morning said the weekend had been “mayhem”.

Residents, traders and visitors described mountains of rubbish, overflowing bins and piles of bottles at Brighton and Hove’s most important sites as they backed The Argus’s Take It Home campaign to try to keep the city free from litter.

Despite dozens of extra litter bins across the seafront and city centre the Pavilion Gardens were strewn with rubbish from overflowing bins on Saturday evening. Even with 60 extra litter bins on the beach all were overflowing as beach users left piles of waste behind.

After hours of work the beach was clean again by 9am yesterday morning, but the messiest weekend so far this year left traders fearing visitors will be put off by the rubbish and asking how the city will cope with two more busy weekends with next week’s bank holiday weekend followed by Pride the week after.

Traders praised the efforts of the council’s clean-up teams but called for bans on glass bottles, bins to be emptied more frequently and more consideration from beach users.

Dave Hall, owner of Waters Edge café, said: “When I open up in the morning the whole place is full of glass. In my opinion all drinks should be sold in plastic bottles.

“There would still be plastic rubbish but at least people wouldn’t get hurt. We always have people asking for plasters because they have stepped on broken glass.

“A number of people and holiday makers come down on a nice weekend, but the rubbish is awful and it must put people off.”

Mark Gillespie, owner of the Lodestar café, said: “There are two problems, rubbish on the beach from the day and then the rubbish from the clubs at night.

“On Sunday morning we could barely get in because of how much was building up.

“We’re not allowed to serve anything in glass, but the clubs can.

“Some of the bars give out plastic cups then sell glass wine bottles. It makes no sense but the council says it’s almost impossible to enforce.”

Arash Bakhshae, a personal trainer at the Riptide gym, said: “On Saturday morning it was awful. I could barely get in because of all the rubbish. The bins were all overflowing.

“People are just disrespectful and rude. I’ve heard people saying it’s all right because there are people paid to pick it up.

“We have our own bin but even that had rubbish piled up on top of it.

Dog walker Mat Burton, of St George’s Road, walks along the beach most mornings.

He said: “The council’s team are really good at clearing up, but it doesn’t make it right that people leave all their rubbish in the first place.”

Ruth Lewis, of Daniel Lewis Home and Garden, said: “Pride weekend will be interesting. I hope they have extra people on to deal with it.

“If I had young children I would be worried. I came in one morning to find glass smashed all over the front.”

A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: “Over 23 tonnes of rubbish was collected from the beach this weekend. This is the most we have collected this year. There were 60 extra litter bins placed along the seafront and Hove lawns area and we placed 15 additional 3,200 litre street bins and eight more 1,100 litre bins around the city centre and sea front area.

“We will be having extra provisions for the bank holiday weekend and Pride. We urge people to dispose of their litter responsibly either by putting it in one of the litter or recycling bins, or by taking it home with them.”

Hove MP Mike Weatherley said he had been inundated with calls about the mess, including one constituent who described the beach on Sunday morning as “more akin to a landfill site”.

Mr Weatherley added: “If everyone just took care of the rubbish that they created then it would really help and save a lot of taxpayers’ money having to be spent on clearing it all up.”