A beach and town centre littered with waste has triggered calls for more effective refuse measures.

Soiled nappies, smashed glass, beer bottles and charred barbecues were among the 47 bags of rubbish cleared from Folkestone on bank holiday Monday.

And the littering, tackled by the council’s Veolia Waste contractors and Folkestone Town Sprucer Team, has fuelled concerns “it is only to get worse.”

“You get a lot of used nappies just left there behind on the beach, so it isn’t just youngsters who leave the mess – it’s families too," said Town Sprucer Peter Philips.

“There were broken bottles on the beach a lot of smashed glass around the town too – it’s dangerous.

“It was the hottest day of the year, the bins were filling up so quickly, the moment they were cleared they were full again.

“Seriously, more needs to be done to cater for this amount of people, it’s only going to get worse in the summer."

More bins need to be placed around beaches, an increase in workers need to clear the detritus and beach-goers need to take their mess home, he added.

Mr Philips, whose Sprucer crew cleared about 50 bags of rubbish in 25C heat on Monday, also called on the district council to look at fresh initiatives to tidy the town.

Owen Leyshon, who works for the Romney Marsh Countryside Partnership, also highlighted the dangers of the debris being swept out to sea.

“It isn’t too bad on Dungeness where we were working, it’s the bigger recreational beaches like Camber and Folkestone where you get this problem," he said.

“Waste is left, the tide comes out and it gets swept out to sea. We’re all aware of the dangers of this happening.

“People just need to do the obvious thing and use the bins.

Scores of pictures surfaced on social media showing the aftermath of the mess.

Folkestone and Hythe District Council (FHDC) said it deployed additional staff and bins to help keep up with demand.

They said: “But however many times we empty the bins it’s not always easy to keep pace with the demand when we have record-breaking weather.

“When bins are full we would ask residents and visitors to take their litter home with them.

“We don’t think this is too much to ask to keep our district looking beautiful.

“After all, we all carry full bags of food and drink to the beach or park for a picnic so it should be even easier - and lighter – to take home what’s left.”

They added: “there will always be some people who will never put their litter in a bin however many we provide and think it’s fine to leave their left-overs on our beaches and in our parks.

“It is difficult to find ways of persuading these people to change their behaviour – although we will issue a fixed penalty to anyone we see littering."