Over 500 volunteers, amongst them 15 professional scuba divers and 40 snorkelers, cleaned up the seabed off the eastern end of the Costa Tropical.

The meeting point was at the boat ramp on Castell de Ferro beach in the early morning and from there seven small boats set off to the diving points on a mission that would last most of the day, even with the heaving seas on Sunday.

Meanwhile, 300 volunteers divided up into squads were working along the beaches and coastline picking up litter.

The expert divers came from clubs along the Costa Tropical, as well as from Almería, to take part in the event organised by Club La Espera, together with Club Crised.

What started off as a vague idea from a diving club and an environmental inspector from La Mamola ended up with the backing of eight municipalities: Castell de Ferro, La Rábita, La Mamola, Gualchos, Rubite, Castell de baño, Casarones and Lújar.

The beaches that received this TLC (tender loving care) were: El Pozuelo, La Rábita, Melicena, Los Yesos, La Mamola, Castillo de Baños, Casarones, El Lance and Castell de Ferro – that’s about 30 kilometres of coastline, making it the biggest clean up to date.

The organisers had only dared hope for a about 150 volunteers to turn up on the big day but when they got round to counting them they realised that there were around 500, plus a few spontaneous beachgoers that had been lying on the beach and had become inspired and so joined in.

The organisers calculated that the sweep bagged about four tonnes of rubbish, which was loaded onto refuse lorries waiting in La Mamola and Castell de Ferro.

The underwater trophies were old tyres, broken fishing nets, plastic bottles and 8-metre long, plastic pipes. One of the boats had to tow a fishing net that had been lying on the bottom to the beach because it weighed about 200 kilos.

As for the beaches, some 10,000 cigarette butts were picked up on just three beaches. La Mamola had around 5,000 alone.

(News: Costa Tropical (Eastern), Granada, Andalucia)