DOUBLE BLUFF — A thick carpet of small pieces of shredded red paper coated the beach next to the water’s edge.

Nearby, peppered between nearly every piece of driftwood within view, were hundreds upon hundreds of small cardboard disks.

Hither and yon were countless cardboard tubes, soggy but still smelling of burnt gunpowder.

Cheryl May looked around and breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s a lot cleaner this year than it’s ever been before,” said May, the coordinator of beach clean-up efforts across Whidbey Island, as she stood on the shoreline the morning after Independence Day. “This is cool. I will not be spending my life here, picking up this same four inches of beach.”

“Life is too beautiful,” she said.

Despite the fact that fireworks are not allowed at Double Bluff, the area attracts hundreds of revelers each Fourth of July evening, and the beach is filled with people lighting off fireworks from nearly one end of the county park to the other.

Like any party place, however, the beach on the morning after is a major mess.

May has been leading the beach clean-up effort for a dozen years. For the past five years, three tons of fireworks and trash from the Fourth of July has been picked up by volunteers. A grant from the Department of Ecology pays for the clean-up.

Jameson Gavac, 14, and Caleb Hellinger, 14, recalled the fiery show at Double Bluff as the sky filled with uncoordinated blasts from dozens and dozens of fireworks fans.

“There were tons of things going off at once,” said Caleb.

“It was like a finale going all night long,” Jameson added. “It was like a war zone.”

Fireworks were still being lit when they left for home at about 11 p.m. Sunday.

The teens were part of a dozen or so volunteers who came out early Monday morning to help May tidy up the beach.

Though people were encouraged to pick up after themselves — a 40-foot-long metal receptacle was placed near the entrance of the park for trash — there was still a daunting amount of fireworks fragments and garbage mixed into the driftwood-strewn shore. Some of the debris washed out with the tide, but returned with the waves and was partially buried in the sand.

“I’m amazed at how rude people are to leave all their garbage. It’s phenomenal,” Jameson said. “It’s just crazy.”

Gary Milne, a Freeland resident who can frequently be found scouring Whidbey beaches for litter, went to the beach on July 4 and handed out trash bags to people bringing fireworks.

Monday’s mess would have been bigger if many of the visitors the night before hadn’t made an effort to keep things clean.

“People packed up a lot of stuff, and they seemed really positive about helping out,” Milne said. “That’s what it takes; people working together.”