Some Florida beaches are getting trashed as coronavirus restrictions are eased and visitors and residents alike flock back to the coasts.

Beachgoers in Cocoa Beach, located on the Atlantic coast about an hour of east of Orlando, left behind some 13,560 pounds of trash along the city's six miles of beaches from May 1 to 4, when beach parking reopened for the first time after having been closed more than a month ago.

Everything from dirty diapers to cigarette butts to soda bottles filled the city's beach trash cans and dumpsters. Overflow spilled into some parking lots and beach access points, and some of the trash was just left lying in the sand on the beach.

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The previous weekend – April 24 to 27, when parking was still closed – only saw 3,120 pounds of trash collected from the city's beaches.

Bryan Bobbitt, Executive Director of Keep Brevard Beautiful, which is responsible for clearing trash from the area's beaches, told weather.com the crowds and the trash they left behind were on par with the Fourth of July or Memorial Day weekends, which are normally among the town's busiest days of the year.

"Everyone’s been stuck at home for over a month and with everything else still being closed and kind of restricted, the beach is a good place to go especially when the weather is nice," Bobbitt said. "From what I am hearing, a lot of the other beaches are (also) getting hammered."

The Salty Soul Foundation, which does beach cleanups on the other side of the state in Pinellas County, posted photos on social media of litter left behind by beachgoers, and noted that volunteer beach cleanups are harder to organize in the time of a pandemic.

Farther south, beaches in Naples became so crowded on Saturday that officials ordered them to close again on Sunday. City officials voted Monday to reopen the beaches, but with restricted hours. County officials there followed suit with their own new restrictions.

"With the overcrowding came the overflowing of trash cans and things like that," Naples Police Lt. Bryan McGinn told weather.com. "It was a pretty taxing weekend for city services."

News reports said many beachgoers made the two-hour drive to Naples from Miami and other South Florida cities where beaches were still closed.

"This past Saturday was like no other," Steve Carnell, department head for the county’s public services department, said at a county commission meeting Tuesday, according to the Naples Daily News.

In Cocoa Beach, officials also hoped to send a message to out-of-town daytrippers, many of whom come from landlocked Orlando. Police distributed a press release to Orlando media outlets last week warning that anyone caught littering would receive a $250 fine.

Police Chief Scott Rosenfeld told weather.com that several officers were assigned to "litter enforcement" over this past weekend. He said one person was fined $250. Rosenfeld noted that litter rules are difficult to enforce, but he thinks the fact that there was stepped-up awareness was a reminder to people to not leave their trash behind, whether it be on the beach or spilling out of overflowing trash cans.

"Anecdotally, there appeared to be a reduction in the amount of trash left behind compared to the prior weekend," Rosenfeld said in an email Tuesday. "Littering is a difficult offense to enforce, simply because an officer or code enforcement officer must witness the act. Our biggest issue is trash left behind by groups of beachgoers. Who in the group is/are the offender(s) and have these individuals actually departed for the day? Ensuring those elements are met is certainly a challenge."

For the latest coronavirus information in your county and a full list of important resources to help you make the smartest decisions regarding the disease, check out our dedicated COVID-19 page.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.