More than half of the world's sea turtles haveeaten plastic, an Australian study has found.

The analysis of 1 000 sea turtles by Australia'speak scientific body, the Commonwealth Scientificand Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO),found that 52 percent of the reptiles have eatenplastic.

Researchers found that a sea turtle that hadeaten only one piece of plastic had a 22 percentchance of dying as a result.

Once a turtle had consumed 14 pieces ofplastic, there was a 50 percent chance it would die asa result.

"We knew that turtles were consuming a lot ofplastic, but we didn't know for certain whether thatplastic actually caused the turtles' deaths, or whetherthe turtles just happened to have plastic in themwhen they died," CSIRO Oceans and AtmospherePrincipal Research Scientist Chris Wilcox said in amedia release on Friday.

"Millions oftonnes ofplastic debris is enteringour world's oceans on a yearly basis," and "the betterwe understand the issue, the better equipped we areto address the problem, and work towards viable,scalable solutions."

Unsurprisingly, the team found that the chancesof a turtle dying increased with every piece of plasticthey ate.

According to the World Economic Forum(WEF), the amount of plastic in the world's oceanshas doubled in the last 20 years.

The WEF found that oceans would containmore plastic than fish by 2 050 ifpollution continuesat the current rate.

"Even a single piece ofplastic can kill a turtle,"Kathy Townsend, an animal ecology lecturer at theUniversity ofthe Sunshine Coast, said.

"Some of the turtles we studied had eaten onlyone piece of plastic, which was enough to kill it. Inone case, the gut was punctured, and in the other,the soft plastic clogged the gut."