Millions of people visit Brighton's beautiful beaches every year to swim in the sea and enjoy the seaside vibes. However, not everyone departs without leaving a trace. After this year's May bank holiday weekend, the council cleared up 20 tonnes of rubbish from the beach.

Brighton & Hove Tidy Up Team is a volunteering organisation that has equipment stashed all over the city to allow volunteers to proactively keep their city clean.

On a blissfully cool summer evening, we took a shift with their equipment to have a beach clean of our own. We were joined by new Goodgymmer Alessandro, lapsed Goodgymmer Rachel back after a long sabbatical and Liz for her second task with us. We picked-up funky vests, monstrous litter pickers and an array of bin bags from the communal equipment bin by the Bandstand and then descended on to the surrounding promenade and beach.

We split into pairs, with dedicated bag holders to avoid the ignominy of having a gust of wind upend your rubbish bag while you're trying to put something else in. Although the beach wasn't looking too litter strewn we still managed to pick-up a lot of cigarette butts, bottle caps, plastic wrappers, straws and cans.

Hearteningly, throughout the evening we were approached by a number of people thanking us for our work, which was a beautiful reminder that most people care deeply about keeping their beaches clean and that the litter is only dropped by a small minority.