Doug McLaren, of the Broughty Ferry Community Council Group, was one of the people collecting litter to be analysed for the annual report by The Marine Conservation Society (MCS).

He said, “While there was more litter on Scotland’s beaches in 2003 than 2002, Broughty beach once again showed a small improvement of just under 10%.

“Credit should go to the combined efforts of the city council, community service order participants and the community council under the “Adopt-a-Beach” scheme which MCS run.

“Last weekend for example, the community council team picked up over 60 doggy-poo bags carelessly discarded by owners — I’m sure dog owners can do better.

“But we are now looking forward to the new bathing season when Broughty Beach can proudly fly its seaside award flag in recognition of its excellent water quality and facilities.”

Peter Spencer, of Broughty Ferry Community Council, also helped in the clean up. He said, “The beach is definitely very much cleaner now that it has been in previous years.

“This is a result of a combination of things — the community service people who have been picking up litter on the beach have been doing a very good job — but I also think people have been dropping less litter.

“The water also seems to be much cleaner than it has been in previous years”.

Mr Spencer said in the past the clean-up used to take both days of the weekend, but last September, they had been able to complete the sweep on the Saturday.

More than 2500 volunteers helped to clean and survey a total of 135 kilometres of UK coastline on 244 beaches on September 21 and 22, 2003.

MCS litter project co-ordinator, Andrea Crump said, “This year more litter was found for every metre of beach surveyed than during any other Beachwatch survey.”

“Tourists will choose a beach because of its beautiful scenery and clean sands, then spoil it for other users by leaving their rubbish behind.

“The public needs to understand the link between creating litter and the consequences of their actions.

“Every single piece of rubbish has an owner and every single person can make a difference by making sure they take it with them when they leave the beach.”

Findings showed that litter density had risen by 29% compared with 2002 results and by 99% compared with Beachwatch 1994.

Beach visitors were found to be the biggest source, contributing 36.7% of all rubbish, followed by fishing debris (14.6%), sewage-related debris (7.8%) and shipping litter (2.0%).

England recorded the highest volume of beach litter with 2655 items per kilometre surveyed, followed by Wales at 2455.2 items per km, Scotland with 1535.5 items/km, the Channel Islands at 1125 items/km and Northern Ireland at 807 items/km.