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posted by janrinok on Thursday October 22 2015, @12:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the we-are-bad-for-the-world dept.

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


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2015, @10:12PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2015, @10:12PM (#253417)

    I was reading the coverage at the Center for American Progress [thinkprogress.org] at just about the same time that frojack was submitting this.

    The human health effects of oxybenzone, along with other chemicals found in the vast majority of sunscreens, have been called into question by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in previous years. The group has found [ewg.org] that oxybenzone penetrates the skin, gets into the bloodstream, and acts as an endocrine disruptor, much like it has been found to do in coral reefs. EWG states that concentrations of oxybenzone are linked to disorders such as endometriosis in older women and lower birth weights in newborn girls--but the group notes that the studies showing this link aren’t conclusive.

    -- gewg_