Video: China's 'number one beach' swamped by rising tide of pollution Earlier this year China's official news agency - more usually a mouthpiece for more upbeat information - finally sounded the alarm. The beach was littered with around 60 tons of rubbish, Xinhua reported. Sunbathing had become "a nightmare of garbage and mounting maritime pollution," with plastic bags, shattered glass and bamboo sticks scattered along the beach. Tourist walked walk near Silver Beach (Adam Dean) Last month the Chinese government announced plans to spend £180 billion over the next five years to combat the airborne pollution that has left swathes of the country enveloped by toxic smog. That followed a public recognition by the country's new president, Xi Jinping, that China's environmental problems now pose a grave threat to its economy, as well as to the wellbeing of its people. But locals told the Telegraph that pollution on Silver Beach was still getting worse every year. "On bad days, the beach is almost totally covered with rubbish, leaving only standing room," said one female cleaner, who declined to give her name. We can barely keep up. Further along, tourists posed for photographs beside the putrefying body of a finless porpoise that had been swept ashore. It was unclear how the endangered animal had died but environmentalists blame pollution, growing shipping traffic and illegal fishing in the waters around China for the decline in its numbers. By the entrance at one end of the beach, just 200 yards from the sea, was an illegal landfill site. Just beyond a sign that read "Beautiful Silver Beach Welcomes You!," an abandoned mannequin was perched on top of a fetid heap of decomposing rubbish that had been dumped by unscrupulous fly-tippers. Tourists on China's Silver Beach (Adam Dean) And at Guan Tou Ling, another nearby section of beach, newlyweds picked their way across rock pools filled with rotting shoes and plastic bags to pose for photographs on a coastal outcrop. "People don't seem to care about the pollution at all," complained one woman standing on the rocks, who was counting stray pieces of footwear as they floated by. The grim scenes are a far cry from the 1980s when Silver Beach in Beihai, then a small southwestern seaside town, shot to prominence - just as a series of reforms began to kick China's economy into life. Over the years that followed several generations of Chinese leaders - including former premiers Zhu Rongji, Li Peng and Wen Jiabao and Mr Xi's predecessor as president, Hu Jintao - all sunned themselves here while undertaking official "inspection tours." Jiang Zemin, president during the 1990s when economic growth began to take off, planted a beachside hoop pine, a spectacular Australian conifer, as a symbol of his affection. But the economic growth that has transformed China into one of the world's great powers soon began to have an effect. Beihai itself began to grow, its population of 110,000 in 1984 doubling every few years - so that by 2020 it is projected to reach 2 million. Tourist walked past a dead porpoise washed up on Silver Beach (Adam Dean) As the city began to sprawl, there was a race to build by the sea. In 2003, the authorities were forced to order the demolition of dozens of seafront developments that had damaged local wildlife and from which wastewater and other effluent had stained the beach's sands black. Four years later local waters turned red after a factory pumped huge quantities of hydrogen peroxide into the sea. Environmental authorities in Beihai did not respond to interview requests but on Tuesday a new law that will impose heavy fines on polluters came into force. Xu Haiou, a local journalist and environmental activist, said she believed officials were fighting to protect the beach and block the arrival of polluting industries in the area, but complained that severe damage had already been done. "Silver Beach might have been the number one beach in the world in the 1980s but it isn't any more," she said. The sands have changed. The waters here are not the most tainted in China, according to Wang Haibo, a former government inspector who is now the country's director of ocean protection for Greenpeace. But, he said, China is doing least of all the major developing nations to protect its seas, far less than Brazil, for example. "They just hope the eco-systems can recover by themselves," he said. It's not their priority. The government's own figures underline the scale of the problem. Last year, 72 rivers pumped more than 17 million tons of pollution into China's seas, including 93,000 tons of oil and 46,000 tons of heavy metals. A landfill site is seen near Silver Beach (Adam Dean) In March, China's State Oceanic Administration conceded that the country faced an "acute" crisis with around 26,300 square miles of sea receiving bottom marks for maritime pollution, more than double the previous year's figure. And there is no let-up in sight at Silver Beach, where local politicians are pushing ahead with an ambitious five-year plan to double the size of Beihai's economy. There is one bright side, though, from the 1,800 tons of rubbish removed from the beach each year. A muscular 66-year-old pensioner, who gave his name as Long Wushu, said that the water was dirtier than it had been a decade ago. But he added that he, at least, was benefiting from the continuing pollution: he makes up to £215 a month hauling bulging nets of litter from beach and selling it for recycling. "It is good for the environment, good for my income and good for my health," he beamed.