Invercargill City Council parks and recreation manager Caroline Rain said a ranger discovered the pages and covers ripped from printed books on Saturday afternoon.
"Unfortunately, more litter of the same type was deposited again along Daffodil Bay Road the following day. This was approximately 5km on both sides of road," she said.
"Due to the sheer volume of book material and with light cover over the long weekend, more staff were going to be needed [after the Easter break] to make a dent in what was a huge task.
"It was estimated it would take 80 to 100 hours of staff time to pick up the litter."
Rain said the community came together to help.
"This would have taken our team considerable time and effort to remove and prevent them from undertaking more productive work.
"We are exceptionally grateful to the group who organised themselves through a Facebook post and arranged a clean-up of this area. Thank you for your support."
Numerous fines had been handed out for dumped rubbish found at Sandy Point in recent months, she said.
"However, in this case there has been no way of identifying who was involved.
"Sandy Point Domain is highly valued by the local community and visitors to the city. This act of senseless and destructive littering could have had a long-term effect on the environment beyond being visually distressing."
