A frenzy of activity on the West Coast in the wake of ex-cyclone Fehi.

There'll be a massive working bee today to help clean-up a large amount of rubbish swept away, then washed back in by ex-cyclone Fehi on the West Coast.

It hit the old dump at Cobden and ate away 20 metres of the site.

Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn told Chris Lynch diggers have been used to clean up the beach, trying to get tens of thousands of plastic bags off the beach.

"We've done a good job to this point but today we're going to top it off today at 9am, we're having a massive community working bee and we're going to just pick up all of that stuff up and down the beaches around Greymouth."

He says the council is moving fast to stop the issue getting any worse.

"So we've had a special council meeting the other day and we're going to spend between $800,000 and a million dollars building a protection wall as soon as possible, in fact we'll start that on Wednesday, which is tomorrow."

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