Council was forced to hire special equipment to ‘‘vacuum’’ broken glass out of park lawns.

Catani ward councillor Serge Thomann described the unparalleled partying and the mess left behind as “disgraceful”.

“People who are celebrating Australia Day have left the place like a pigsty, it’s very disgraceful,” he said.

An Australia Day citizenship ceremony was held at St Kilda Gardens at 11am. By noon, the gardens were flooded with party-goers, from families and couples to groups bringing spit roasts.

Cr Thomann said he had been disappointed to witness some people affected by alcohol verbally abusing other revellers.

“It was quite full-on. There’s never been anything that big before. It was just shocking what happened,” Cr Thomann said.

“It got worse and worse through the day, hundreds of people coming with cartons of beer and trolleys from Safeway full of stuff. We had to bring in special vacuum cleaners to vacuum all the glass out of the grass.”

He said the council would look to crowd and litter control ahead of next year’s celebrations following this year’s unexpected level of festivities.

Port Phillip council’s cleaning contractors spent three hours at the three sites cleaning up on January 27.

Acting mayor Frank O’Connor said the council had placed an extra 12 bins at St Kilda Gardens alone but was still required to act quickly to clean up the mess ‘‘as a matter of urgency’’.

‘‘Council condemns the behaviour of some people who visited the gardens and other public open spaces yesterday,’’ he said.

‘‘The lack of respect for these public spaces was appalling and shows a lack of regard for others.’’