What you need to know about Sunscreens

Did you know that sunscreen is highly toxic?

From 1 January 2021, Hawaii banned all sunscreens containing the reef-harming chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate, and with good reason. This radical action was taken because unsafe sunscreens can, and have, caused ecological ruination to coral reefs.

Things you need to know:

• Every person on the beach using an average dollop of sunscreen can contribute 36 g of sunscreen every two hours into the environment.

• Thirty minutes after you’ve applied sunscreen it can be detected in your urine.

• Even the sunscreen residue on your skin washes off in the shower and eventually finds its way into the environment.

• Oxybenzone is an endocrine disruptor. In other words, it causes male fish to be less aggressive or less willing to mate. Where there are sufficient concentrations of oxybenzone in the water, it can prevent the process of sequential hermaphroditism – where a female fish turns into a male – from occurring. Or males may turn back into females. This results in fewer or no males for breeding.

• The chemicals in sunscreen can cause the sterility of corals and fish, or for them to produce unhealthy offspring. They may look healthy, but sterile corals are known as coral reef zombies.

• Oxybenzone can be toxic to the larval stage of fish.

• When something happens to kill off the reef (increased sedimentation, disease, or bleaching, for example) a generally healthy reef will bounce back given the right conditions. However, reefs affected by the chemicals in sunscreen won’t necessarily have the capacity to do this.

• Sunscreen is extremely toxic to lawns and is a herbicide. Some golf courses rule that there must be no sunscreen application while players are out on the greens because it will kill the turf. Likewise, it kills the underwater algae that is food for turtles.

• Oxybenzone decreases the temperature at which corals bleach, and therefore decreases a coral reef’s resilience to climate change.

Check your sunscreen this summer and make sure it is reef safe. Even better, protect your skin without chemicals and use a #rashie. On Norfolk Island reef-safe sunscreens are readily available in our shops. (Prinke Eco Store Norfolk Bath & Body and from the chemist.)

Countries that have banned unsafe sunscreens include: Mexico, the USA (Hawaii, Key West, U.S. Virgin Islands, California), Bonaire, Aruba, Thailand and Palau. This list is growing as more places become reef-aware.