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The sunscreen that snorkelers, beachgoers and children romping in the waves lather on for protection is killing coral and reefs around the globe. And a new study finds that a single drop in a small area is all it takes for the chemicals in the lotion to mount an attack.
Not only did the study determine that a tiny amount of sunscreen is all it takes to begin damaging the delicate corals – the equivalent of a drop of water in a half-dozen Olympic-sized swimming pools – it documented three ways that the ingredient oxybenzone breaks the coral down, robbing it of life-giving nutrients and turning it ghostly white.
Adverse effects on coral started on with concentrations as low as 62 parts per trillion. Yet measurements of oxybenzone in seawater within coral reefs in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands found concentrations ranging from 800 parts per trillion to 1.4 parts per million. That's 12 times the concentrations needed to harm coral.
Oxybenzone is used in more than 3,500 sunscreen products worldwide. Common brands including Coppertone, Baby Blanket Faces, L'Oreal Paris, Hawaiian Tropic and Banana Boat all use the Oxy.
There are alternative sunscreens with no oxybenzone. The trouble is that nobody really knows about this threat to the reefs, and they take a fair bit of convincing.
This story appeared in the Portland Press Herald
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SanityCheck on Thursday October 22 2015, @01:14PM
Likely the alternatives are just as bad, it's just that we don't have studies about the effects of the alternatives. I don't think humans will ever stop casually fucking things up. It jsut becomes more casual the more of us there are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2015, @06:23PM
This is not news since 2008 at the very least. And still in 2015 it is business as usual. There is money to be made, and dead corals are somebody else's problem. :(