Recently a small boat registered in Fukushima, Japan, was found floating off Midway Atoll, more than 3,000 kilometers from Japan. It is part of a torrent of 20 million tons of metal containers, wood, plastic, paper, bottles and every conceivable kind of floating waste that since the March 11 earthquake in northern Japan, is on its way to Hawaii via ocean currents. We are not aware of the exact extent of the flow or what is in it. All we can be certain of is that the presence of so much floating debris will soil our waters, affect our way of life and threaten tourism.

Unfortunately, it is part of a larger problem. The plastic density of marine debris in Hawaii’s ocean is steadily increasing.

A scientific expedition sponsored by the non-profit Algalita Foundation recently conducted zooplankton trawls in near- shore and offshore waters that found bits of plastic down to 90 feet of water. The bits of plastic are ingested by phytoplankton, sea birds, fish and more than likely people.

They are just elements of the great Pacific Garbage Patch to the northwest of Hawaii that has a huge density of floating bags, garbage and other debris and is said to be bigger than Texas.

What can be done?

If we allow the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting on marine debris to follow its predecessors dating back to 1984, nothing much. Representatives from government and non-govern- mental organizations will say how much they would like to do things. Some valuable research may result but beyond that, nothing much.

There are, however, things we as citizens can ask. We can ask that Hawaii’s congressional delegation show the leadership to press the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to come up with a real plan on the city, state and international levels to deal with this impending crisis.

There are computer models that track the movement of the marine debris across the Pacific. Unfortunately, these models can only give approximations of the direction of the flow of the trash.

Because it’s not possible to take accurate samples by satellite in the ocean, no one knows exactly where and when the flow will arrive.

On the positive side, there has been a small, successful effort pioneered by the state Department of Business and Economic Development, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council and the NOAA marine debris program to turn scrap netting into energy. Similar programs conducted with Schnitzer Steel are conducted throughout the U.S. but on a very limited basis. However, commercial fishing marine debris is only a small part of a waste stream that moves garbage from highly populated industrial areas and moves it by ocean current across the oceans. It’s likely that this program can never be honestly addressed unless we are able to determine internationally where the waste streams begin and provide incentives for individual countries to stop dumping their trash in the sea.

In the meantime, three suggestions to address the issue of marine debris in Hawaii immediately come to mind. The success of Project Huki in Maunalua Bay demonstrated that local leadership combined with federal dollars can remove alien species from limited areas of the near shore. We need to start getting federal dollars to prepare for the influx from Fukushima that will come to our beaches.

The second is to support efforts by companies such as Harborwing Technologies, a Honolulu-based company that builds advanced ocean monitoring vessels, to place its floating monitoring systems in the stream of waste from Fukushima. If we can monitor the flow, we can update the models, chart its content and prepare for its arrival.

Third, we have to provide incentives for commercial fishers to bring in fisheries and other waste and burn it for energy.

These are small beginnings. But at least they will result in actions that can help address the problems of marine debris before they arrive in Hawaii.

This is a Pacific-wide problem. If Fukushima teaches us anything, it is that we are not isolated. Everything that happens in our ocean region affects us all.

Mike Markrich is a member of the Healthy Oceans Network, a Hawaii/Seattle-based organization dedicated to help remove marine debris from the ocean.