More than 15,000 items of litter were collected off 15 of the county's beaches as part of a major clean-up operation.

Record numbers of people turned up for the Great British Beach Clean run by the Marine Conservation Society.

The highest number of volunteers across the country was at Pegwell Bay in Thanet, where 306 litter pickers spent over 200 hours collecting 1,885 items on the sands.

Other heavily littered beaches included Garrison Point Beach in Sheerness, where 1,652 pieces of rubbish were removed, and Shakespeare Beach in Dover, where 1,588 items were cleared up.

Lizzie Prior, MCS Beach and River Clean-up Project Officer, says although a drop in litter sounds like good news, it is in fact anything but.

She said: “In 2017 our volunteers picked up an average of 717 items of litter for every 100m they cleaned and surveyed, this year that figure dropped by 16%.

"But it’s almost certainly a false dawn. UK governments must certainly not think the crisis is over and slow down or shelve any much-needed litter legislation.

“Litter levels fluctuate year on year and for the last decade have risen by over 15% .

"The Great British Beach Clean is just a snapshot of the UK litter story and must be seen in the context of the broader trending picture. There’s more litter in our seas than there has ever been."