A weekly clean-up of the coastal environment of Queensland's Whitsundays has removed more than 240,000 kilograms of waste over 13 years.
Libby Edge, 43, started Eco Barge Clean Seas in 2009 as a not-for-profit in Airlie Beach to protect the region's marine life and preserve the aquatic environment.
She said volunteers, who included backpackers and retirees, got a "golden ticket" in being able to visit beautiful locations while helping with the clean-up effort.
"We're giving them a platform where they can come out and do direct action to help protect our marine life," she said.
Hannah Hannon-Worthington, 21, moved back to Australia from the United Kingdom three months ago after her dad passed away.
Her dad spent his life in Proserpine and it was his friend, Errol Hurst, who told her about Eco Barge.
"It's grassroots and it's a community and you're contributing to something," Ms Hannon-Worthington said.
Mr Hurst, 66, has been involved with Eco Barge since it started.
"I meet a lot of backpackers who come out and see the Whitsundays for the first time," he said.
Hundreds of kilos of rubbish
Since then, Eco Barge has removed nearly a quarter of a million kilograms of marine debris and litter from the Whitsunday region.
The organisation is funded through government grants and a partnership with the Coca Cola Foundation.
Despite frequent barges, there are still hundreds of kilograms of rubbish collected each trip.
"When I first started, people didn't think there was an issue in the Whitsunday islands," Ms Edge said.
"We have 74 iconic islands with many south-east facing bays that jut out from the coast and that's where we are getting a huge accumulation of marine debris.
"We're in a monitoring phase, and it's thanks to over 6,000 volunteers that have helped us achieve over 240,000 kilos."
Ms Hannon-Worthington said a lot of what they pick up was broken-down microplastics.
"We find loads of bottle tops, odd objects, toothbrushes and flip flops," she said.
Ms Edge said that after a barge trip, volunteers spent another day combing through the debris and entering it into a national database.
"We don't just want to be cleaning the beaches, we want to know what types of litter is out there and which bays and beaches are most impacted," she said.
"We're trying to pretty much recycle 90 per cent of what we find."
National database
Tangaroa Blue Foundation was created to enable volunteers and organisations running coastal clean-ups to collect data on what they are finding.
That information is collated into a standardised national database and, since 2004, has had 21 million pieces of data added.
Ms Edge said it was a useful tool that everyone could be using.
"If you're doing a beach clean-up by yourself you can enter whatever you found into that website as well," she said.
