Despite the high-profile involvement in the campaign, some activists said the extent of the damage means that state-sponsored endeavours rather than grassroots efforts are needed to tackle the crisis.
"It's not enough. The scale of the waste in the sea is massive," Joey Ayoub, an activist and blogger who was at the event, told
The New Arab in reference to the clean-up.
"Just after the activists left, I saw a family come to the area. The father told his daughter, who was carrying a plastic bottle, to throw it on the beach, despite being close to a bin," he added.
"It ended up in the sea. In the end, we need institutional efforts" to change attitudes.
Plastic in the sea and ocean is by no means just a Lebanese problem. According to a
Guardian investigation in June, the problem is as serious as climate change, with annual consumption of plastic bottles set to top half a trillion by 2021. This far outstripped recycling efforts and jeopardises oceans, coastlines and other environments.
Lebanon experienced a major waste crisis in mid-2015, with garbage piling up in the streets of Beirut and its surroundings after the closure of the country's main landfill.
This crisis triggered mass protests, with many taking aim at politicians in a country that has suffered endemic corruption since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
However, the protests ended when the government implemented a temporary landfill-based solution.
Environmental groups say landfills are a bad solution, arguing Lebanon can better address the issue through
recycling and sorting at source, and accuse politicians of exploiting the crisis for lucrative waste-management
profit.