A team of dedicated volunteers cleaned up Elbow Beach on Saturday — with two people even diving into stormy seas to collect trash.

The clean up was organised by Blue Water Divers and resulted in 22 volunteers picking up 11 bags of rubbish, weighing 245 lb, and six bags of recyclable glass and aluminium, weighing 120 lb.

Marie Wilson, manager of the Blue Water dive shop, said: "I'm really, really happy. The beach has never looked better.

"It looks great down here today. Everybody worked really, really hard in hot, hot conditions.

"There were mountains of trash," she added. "It was disgusting down here.

"It's not just the tourists, it's the locals. They come down here and leave their stuff behind."

Ms Wilson said two divers made it into the sea but others had to turn back due to the heavy surf.

Keep Bermuda Beautiful collected the trash at the end of Saturday's operation, which was dubbed Project Aware.