More than 70 bags of rubbish were collected from Falmouth’s Gyllyngvase Beach on Sunday as part of a countywide clean up.

The three-hour event saw 80 people turn up to help pick up litter and other debris washed onto the beach during the storms of the last two weeks.

Leading the clean up at Gyllyngvase was the Falmouth and Exeter universities’ students’ union, overseen by Kristy Wallace, FXU community action coordinator.

It was at the request of Volunteer Cornwall and Clean Cornwall, which joined together to launch the Great Cornish Beach Litter Pick on ten of the county’s biggest beaches.

The aim was to show that Cornwall remained open for business after the storms and spruce up the beaches ahead of this week’s half term beach.

Students from FXU were also at Porthtowan, where they were joined by sailors from RNAS Culdrose.

Kristy Wallace said: “It was a pleasant and unexpected surprise to receive an email from Culdrose. With student volunteers, 25 naval trainees and the public getting involved, this quiet event has blossomed into something really amazing and it been a fantastic and successful day.”

In total more than 450 bags of rubbish were collected at Gyllyngvase, Porthtowan Perranporth, Polzeath, Fistral in Newquay, Porthmeor in St Ives, Gwithian, Par, Looe and Summerleaze in Bude.

Andy Brelsford, support and development manager at Volunteer Cornwall, said: “There was a really big effort and fantastic to see lots of people out there from the local communities – lot of families with children.

“It was so inspiring to see so many people getting stuck in and having fun at the same time.”

People were encouraged to carry out their own cleans of other local beaches not on the list, with at least another four – including at Swanpool – also known to have taken place.