Cans, bottles, food, wrappers and even diapers littered Point Pleasant Beach as Brianne Diomede took her daily beach walk Tuesday morning.



"It was just a disgrace to see," she says. "I couldn't even walk the rest of the beach. It was just so awful."

Sunny skies brought huge crowds to the Jersey Shore over the weekend. It was great for businesses, but visitors left behind much more than their footprints.

"It's an ecosystem here," Diomede says. "Regardless of whether you're a local or a tourist, pick up your trash. Whatever you bring in, bring right back out."

Mike Woods manages Risden's Beach and says cleanup crews were struggling to keep up. "We had the guy come in this morning with the beach cleaning machine and he filled that up twice and dumped it," he says.

Woods says it's an ongoing issue. "I don't know what we can do," he says. "We have garbage cans at every booth but they don't want to walk that far."

Authorities say they plan to put up more signs reminding people to pick up after themselves.

A $9 beach badge fee helps pay for the cleanup, which is something officials say should be considered before complaining that New Jersey beaches aren't free. 

A spokesperson for Jenkinson's in Point Pleasant Beach says beaches there were also littered with garbage from the large Memorial Day crowd. She says workers scoured the beaches until dark Monday and came in early today to finish the job.