Most mornings Susie Crick, president of the Surfrider Foundation South Coast branch, picks up two kilograms of rubbish, half of which is plastic, as she runs along Coledale beach.

In the past two months there has been a constant stream of blue plastic tabs washed ashore.

On a bad day Ms Crick has picked up 100 ties, on other days just a handful.

It is not known what they are used for or where they originated.

One suggestion is that they may have come from a fishing trawler or ship, another is that they could be breaking off a net or lobster pot.

"I don't want to lay blame as we don't know what they are," Ms Crick said. "But they don't belong on the beach.

"We all have a responsibility not to pollute the ocean and I think a responsibility to reduce the amount of plastic we use in our lives."

Ms Crick said Wollongong City Council was investigating the blue tabs.

A CSIRO survey published last year showed that local litterbugs were to blame for beach pollution in Australia with 75 per cent of the debris plastic.

The study showed Illawarra beaches had between 10,000 and 20,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre.

Most beach pollution washed ashore started out on land as litter on beaches or was washed into the ocean through storm water drains.

Ms Crick is passionate about keeping the coastline pristine and began picking up beach rubbish a few years ago.

"We have to rethink the way we use plastic. Something we use for five minutes, like straws and water bottles, aren't always recycled. Plastic takes 500 years to degrade and before it does it breaks up into tiny pieces."

Marine life then digest the plastic fragments which can kill them or make them sick.

The CSIRO predicts within 40 years 95 per cent of seabirds will have plastic in their gut.

The Surfrider Foundation's Rise Above Plastics campaign encourages everyone to reduce their plastic footprint.