Clean-up leaves only memories of jubilee revels

All that remained yesterday from the glittering jubilee celebrations were the memories – and the litter.

Where, over the weekend, jubilant crowds had sung and sung again "Land of Hope and Glory" in The Mall, there was just rubbish to be collected.

Across the country, cleaners picked up the detritus shed during four days of celebration. Westminster City Council and parks authorities bore the brunt of London's festivities. About 50,000 empty bottles of champagne were collected from around Buckingham Palace and Green Park after Monday night's party alone.

While the long weekend did not see a comparable revival of the famed street parties of 1977, Scotland Yard assessed that the main celebrations proved as big a crowd-puller as their silver jubilee counterpart. Yet – excluding the 37 anti-monarchists who were charged for breach of the peace after a demonstration on Tower Hill – only three people were arrested in the capital over the weekend.

Yesterday, staff from the Royal Parks, helped by nearly 100 street cleaners from Westminster council and workers from the City of London Corporation, were continuing the task of cleaning up after a combined two million revellers had visited the capital.

The council estimated it had picked up 250 tons of rubbish by yesterday lunchtime in a clean-up operation that could cost as much as £75,000.

Thirty tons of sand spread along The Mall and from Admiralty Arch to the Strand for the procession had to be cleared from the streets in little more than an hour after Tuesday's parade.

Yesterday, the cleaners were back at it again, this time collecting the discarded flags and picnic paraphernalia from Tuesday's celebrations. The council estimated that more than 100 tons were picked up, using everything from manual sweepers to giant vacuum machines.

While there were considerably more street parties for the silver jubilee, a similar number of people – an estimated one million – poured into The Mall as on 7 June 1977. But only 750,000 watched the 1977 fireworks display in London two days later, an amount that translates to three quarters of those who gathered for the pop concert and fireworks at this year's celebrations.