The Whitsunday Islands have the dirtiest beaches in Australia, with more than 285 kilograms of plastic found on its shores, new research has found.
A joint research project between Southern Cross University, Amcor, Eco Barge and Earthwatch Institute saw citizen scientists comb six islands to find out what was washing up on the Whitsunday Islands beaches.
The research was established after not-for-profit group Eco Barge found around 130 tonnes of rubbish washed up on Whitsunday Island in the last six years. 
The research project surveyed beaches on Hook Island, South Molle Island, Whitsunday Island, Border Island, Shaw Island as well as Genesta Bay.
In total 38,000 items of marine debris was found on 1100 metres of a combined 12 beaches.
Southern Cross University associate professor Steve Smith said the amount of debris found makes the islands some of the dirtiest in Australia.
"It was a real eye-opener and it was very challenging. From the marine debris we collected, these are among the dirtiest beaches I have seen in Australia and are equivalent to some of the beaches in south-east Asia," he said.
"We had one 10-metre section of a beach where we found 3,900 items of debris which were mostly bits of plastic."
Professor Smith said the extent of marine debris washing up on the shores of these tourist islands is largely due to south-east trade winds washing debris onto the south sides of the islands, avoiding the more populated north sides.
 "One of the reasons it's been hidden is that most of the tourist activity occurs on the north side," Professor Smith said.
Professor Smith said while it was hard to determine exactly where the marine rubbish originated from, they have estimated around 50% of the debris is from overseas locations, and 30% from China.
"It is really hard to track the source of a lot of them, so we have looked at plastic bottles as an indicator," he said.
"Some have labels still in place, some have writing on the bottle and or cap that we can recognise, and therefore we can work out the source of the bottles,
"At the moment, our best hypothesis is they are being thrown off ships passing through Australian coastal waters."
Styrofoam, plastic lids, bottles, ropes and nets were among the debris found washed up along the beaches, but by far the majority of debris was made up of small pieces of plastic.
"By far the majority, 65%, was plastic bits and pieces; items of plastic that had broken down under the influence of sunlight and physical processes like wave action," he said.
Professor Smith said he was surprised the group only came across one instance on the beaches where a bird had died after become entangled with fishing ropes.
While conducting snorkelling surveys, further instances where wildlife had come in contact with plastic debris was evident.
"We did snorkelling surveys and we saw a lot of debris under the water," he said.
"There was evidence of interactions with wildlife; where you could see impacts of where wildlife has come in contact with the debris and that has caused some harm."
Professor Smith said the size of the plastic was most threatening to wildlife health, with increasing evidence worldwide of birds and turtles being found dead after ingesting tiny pieces of plastic.
He said 650 species so far had been documented to ingest plastics worldwide.
"The most abundant type of debris found, the plastic bits and pieces, were at the size where they could be ingested by birds and turtles," he said.
"That size of debris is known to have huge impacts on wildlife and can lead to mortality, so the potential for impact was really large."
Professor Smith hopes the research will feed into the current Federal senate inquiry into The threat of marine plastic pollution in Australia and raise awareness on a community level.
"The best thing that can come out of it is to raise awareness of the inappropriate disposal of plastics, and my personal wish that it will change individual behaviours so that we can stop plastics entering the water," he said.
Professor Smith said having multinational packaging companies like Amcor on board was integral to getting big corporations to recognise the scale of the plastic rubbish problem.
"Most companies recognise the need for reducing environmental costs and in order to do that they have to recognise the scale of the problem," he said.
"It is vital for them to see how much rubbish accumulates in world heritage listed areas like the Great Barrier Marine Park."
While conducting the research, an Amcor bottle was found washed up with other debris.
"One of the interesting things was that we found an Amcor bottle washed up on one of the beaches, which would have been made either in north or south America where their manufacturing plants are," Professor Smith said.
"They have since launched an investigation to find out how it ended up in the Great Barrier Reef."
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