A group of volunteers has braved big swells and strong winds to clean-up some of the most remote beaches in Australia, smashing a record for the amount of garbage recovered.

The week-long expedition involved three dozen people travelling on fishing boats to the rugged south-west of Tasmania to pick up mountains of rubbish, mostly plastics.

The South West Marine Debris Cleanup, which is now in its 13th year and run by environmental scientist Matt Dell, is funded purely by donations and sponsorship.

This year the clean-up set a record for most items collected, with 37,000 items picked up in one day and a total of just over 79,000 items for the week.

Mr Dell said it was disappointing that the problem was getting worse.

"It's so obvious in this beautiful environment when there's rubbish lying around, it's supposed to be our jewel of the environment in Tasmania and it's pretty sad," he said.

"It has very, very open exposed beaches, they receive the highest wave energy of any of the beaches in Australia, and for that reason they're exposed and they collect a lot of rubbish."

The volunteers started at Cox's Bight, a long rocky beach inside the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area only accessible by light plane, a multi-day bushwalk or boat.

On the beach they found soft drink and beer cans, household items like a tomato sauce bottle and microplastics.

Mel Sheppard came from Queensland to pick up rubbish and said it was confronting to see what had washed up.

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Volunteers brave winds, sea swells to collect a record amount of rubbish from Tasmanian beaches