The coastlines are being littered with millions of pieces of plastic that are causing harm to marine life, new research reveals.

The CSIRO says on average, 11 items can be found along every metre of coastline from the Sunshine Coast to the Gold Coast.

Professor Chris Wilcox said about half of all seabirds and a third of turtles had plastic in their stomachs.

"Plastic production is going up really rapidly and the amount in the ocean seems to be tracking that and the amount in the animals is also tracking that," he said.

Professor Wilcox's said his team did "a lot of walking" while scouring Australia's coastline, where they collected samples from the ocean edge to vegetation at the back of the beach.

He said Mission Beach, between Cairns and Townsville, was the most polluted spot his team surveyed in Queensland.

However generally areas on the edges of cities tended to be the worst spots, Professor Wilcox said.

"Illegal dumping around urban margins is a major contributor," he said.

"We see everything. Pretty much any piece of plastic you see in your daily life, we see."

Professor Wilcox said about eight million tonnes of rubbish was dumped in the world's oceans each year.

However unlike the broader issue of climate change, ocean pollution would not be costly to stop if people took more care in disposing of their rubbish.

"Each one of these pieces of plastic was in someone's hand at some point ... being more careful about how we use these things is critical," he said.

The CSIRO research is being published today in peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.