New year celebrations on the Durban beachfront are always loud, busy and particularly messy - and January 1 was no different, with 50 tons of trash collected from just one of the city's beaches.
According to the eThekwini municipality, about 460000 people celebrated the new year at various beaches across the municipality.
About 100000 of the visitors made their way to the central promenade.
"Durban central was the busiest beach. There we collected 50 tons of trash," said Raymond Rampersad, head of the municipality's solid-waste department.
Ten trucks, each with a five-ton capacity, were used to cart away the trash.
Across the city on January 1 alone, about 100 tons of rubbish were loaded into trucks and taken to dumps.
Since the start of the festive season in the first week of December, Rampersad said 700 tons had been collected.
Mayor James Nxumalo said the death of Nelson Mandela, along with prolonged rainfall at the beginning of December, resulted in a slow start to the festive season in Durban.
But, by December 16, when the weather changed for the better, tourists had flocked into the city.
"For Christmas and Boxing Day, we had approximately 402260 people at our beaches. On New Year's Eve, there were 93000 people at our beaches during the day and approximately 39300 that evening. There were a whopping 460780 on New Year's Day," Nxumalo said.
Crowds of this size naturally produced a lot of garbage.
Rampersad said Durban solid-waste teams worked flat out to ensure that the beaches and city streets were clean.
The teams collected rubbish bags, picked up refuse, swept the streets and used high-pressure hoses to clean pavements.
"We provided a 24-hour service," Rampersad said.
He added that the clean-up operations were not limited to the beachfront.
"We placed an additional 1100 bins in the CBD. In total, 1700 tons of waste were collected [throughout the metro]," he said.
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