Three tonnes of rubbish is not what you would expect to see on a remote tropical beach on the northern tip of Australia.

You could not walk a metre without stepping over junk on Old Mapoon beach, on western Cape York.

That was until a group of researchers, volunteers, and Indigenous rangers spent five days late last month cleaning up a seven-kilometre stretch of the beach.

About 5,000 thongs were painstakingly picked up, as well as huge tangles of fishing nets and floats, and bags full of plastic bottles, some of which contained urine.

The weirdest finds were false teeth and a large army worth of toy soldiers.

The mess was not left behind by a careless local population, but brought in on tides and currents in the Arafura Sea from Asia, merchant ships and fishing boats.

Much of the waste, such as deodorants or lighters, had foreign labels and researchers from charity Tangaroa Blue Foundation documented what they could to understand what impacted different coastlines.

The vast swathes of garbage have ignited calls for Australia to strike agreements with its neighbours to reduce the amount of debris that ends up in the ocean.

Mapoon a known hot spot for marine debris

The current comes in from the north, hitting Mapoon on the gulf's east side and swings around to reach the western Gove Peninsula.

"There is a lot of stuff swirling around," the foundation's co-founder Heidi Taylor said.

"Then you get a really big king tide and everything washes up and it basically sits there for the rest of the year."

Rubbish in bags along Mapoon Beach. ( Supplied: Tangaroa Blue Foundation )

Ms Taylor said in Mapoon most of the debris appeared to be coming from Australia's neighbours, however a lot was also sourced back to catering companies, particularly from Singapore, which sold to cargo ships.

"Most is some form of plastic, because it stays around for so long and floats," Ms Taylor said.

"The majority of the foreign stuff would come from China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia."

While an estimated 18,000 pieces of plastic float in every square kilometre of ocean, it was only when it washes ashore that people get an idea of how much is in the oceans and its impact on marine life and seabirds.

Tangaroa, the name for the god of the ocean in Polynesian mythology, has been running expeditions around Australia and collecting data since 2004.

Ms Taylor said in Western Australia the local commercial rock lobster industry had a big impact and further south Chinese water bottles were an issue, which would have been thrown overboard from the international shipping lane off the coast.

In the last decade, the foundation estimated 3 million pieces of marine debris had been removed from the Australian coastline.

Turtles eating rubbish at sea

Janie Creek Camp at Old Mapoon Beach, where all the sorting and counting took place. ( Supplied: Tangaroa Blue Foundation )

It was estimated that up to 30 per cent of turtles that die in Australia do so from plastic ingestion.

In Mapoon, fragments of turtle shells were caught in the nets.

Land and sea ranger Thomas Pitt is trained to do autopsies and came across ingested plastic bags and bottle tops.

"It is tragic to sea our Australian turtles consuming the waste floating around the ocean, it is pretty devastating," he said.

He believed the amount of rubbish on the shore was growing each year and wanted Australia to have agreements with its neighbours to reduce foreign debris.

"We are committed to picking it up, but we need a better strategy," he said.

"It is a concern, we haven't been seeing Australian commercial rubbish, but international stuff, so I'd like to see something done about that."

Volunteer Nina Doyle was overwhelmed by the amount of garbage.

"It's very scary, to think how they treat rubbish overseas," she said.

"Some other countries don't have collections, and they just throw it in the local river, then it's washed out, and it ends up in Australia."