Workmen from Sita removed the two tonne mammal, believed to be a deep-diving baleen whale, from the beach close to the Sea Spray Water Sports Centre early yesterday morning. It was taken to a landfill site.
It is not known when the remains of the whale were washed ashore, but marine experts visited Eastbourne on Wednesday morning to try and identify the sea creature.
The Eastbourne Coastguard team was alerted and British Divers Marine Life Rescue was also involved in trying to ascertain how the whale had come ashore. It could have died hundreds of miles away and is believed to have been dead for a considerable amount of time before it was washed up on to the beach.
Stuart McNab, the station officer at Eastbourne Coastguard, said, "It was certainly hard to distinguish this whale in any detail and the normal measurement and record we would take to inform the Natural History Museum under the stranded whale recording scheme was not performed in this instance."
Trevor Weeks, the national co-ordinator of British Divers Marine Life Rescue, said it is not unusual to find whales in the English Channel.
Mr Weeks said, "We do get the occasional whale visiting the English Channel but these are normally ones which are ill, injured or orphaned and are having problems navigating or lost their way. We do have common dolphin and bottlenose dolphin off the coast of East Sussex."
Mr McNab urged members of the public to contact HM Coastguard if they see a mammal either dead or alive on the shore.
The remains were discovered by Eastbourne resident James Hennessy and his eight-year-old daughter Madeleine.