4 days ago
How can you make sure your sunscreen is 'reef safe'?
Sunscreen is the must have summer holiday item, but while it may protect your skin, there's growing research it could be harming the ocean and marine life.
Each year, about 14,000 tonnes of sunscreen ends up in the sea this way, threatening the health of marine life and coral reefs.
It's led to many people buying 'reef safe' sunscreen but there is currently no regulation of these products.
Now, a group of researchers from the University of Derby want to change that with proper accreditation of reef safe sunscreen that could be regulated globally.
So which sunscreen should you use to protect your skin and the ocean?
How does sunscreen harm coral reefs?
When we swim or shower, sunscreen can wash off our skin and enter waterways.
Each year, about 14,000 tonnes of sunscreen ends up in the sea this way, threatening the health of marine life and coral reefs.
As the sunscreen breaks down, the coral absorbs these chemicals and it can harm its reproduction and growth and contribute to bleaching.
"It just directly kills it as well," Professor Michael Sweet from the University of Derby told ITV News.
"Sometimes in the tests we've undertaken, we put the sunscreen in the water and within a few hours you can see tissue completely sloughing off the coral skeleton."
What is the 'toxic' sunscreen?
Oxybenzone and octinoxate are chemical compounds found in many common sunscreens and are known to have a more significant impact on coral health.
Sunscreen containing these ingredients is often dubbed 'toxic'.
While oxybenzone is approved globally as a sunscreen ingredient, it has been banned in seven places including Hawaii, the US Virgin Islands and parts of Thailand in a bid to reduce the impact on reefs.
What sunscreen should I buy?
Several sunscreen companies market their products as 'reef safe' or 'reef friendly', but there is no regulation of these claims so you'll have to check the ingredient list on the packaging.
It's best to look for mineral active ingredients, like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, and to avoid any products containing oxybenzone, octinoxate and octocrylene.
Lotions are also better for the environment than spray or mist products, as the aerosol particles often end up on the sand and washed out to sea .
The other option is to wear your SPF protection instead. Swim shirts and rash vests protect your skin from UV and can last longer than a bottle of sunscreen.
How would 'reef safe' regulation work?
Professor Sweet said 80 per cent of sunscreen marked as 'reef safe' had never been tested.
He said it was very difficult to actually determine whether a product is 'reef safe' from ingredients alone and the industry needed "a shake up".
Researchers at the University of Derby want to create a Reef Protection Factor (RPF) certification to help people buy products - including sunscreen, cosmetics and surf wax - that have been proven to be safe for use in the ocean.
Under the proposal, products would have to have undergone rigorous testing with adult corals at an accredited independent testing centre to receive RPF creditation.
If there was any evidence of tissue loss in any of the coral tested, the product would not pass and could not be branded 'reef-safe'.
The university has developed a facility that can test a sunscreen's impact on coral and have used that to create their own reef-safe sunscreen.
Professor Sweet said there should be a visible reef safe trademark on items so consumers could easily identify safe products on the shelf.
"Bronze standard is as good as nothing in the water, silver means you're having a positive impact to some degree but gold is your gold standard where you're having a clear positive impact," he said.
"In the concept of things like climate change, many people would say it's a relatively small drop in the ocean.
"But it's something that in theory that we can change overnight."
