There are a plethora of low price alternatives, which a quick search for reef safe sunscreen will reveal. It is more expensive than $5 Coppertone, but not by much.
With regards to the study:
Oxybenzone is a skeletal endocrine disruptor; it induced ossification of the planula (of the coral), encasing the entire planula in its own skeleton.
The study references several others that confirm the harm caused to coral, advising lc50 levels of Oxybenzone are at 139 µg/L for coral exposed to 24 hours of sunlight. That’s .0000139 kg per litre of seawater.
Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are the active ingredients in most reef safe sunscreens. These are old school ingredients that were used before the cheaper chemical sunscreens became popular.
I live on Maui and work on a snorkel boat. My company provides reef safe sunscreen to customers at cost. The biggest complaints from customers are that it doesn’t rub on as easily and it leaves a slight whitish tint to the skin. We also push customers to wear a wet suit top to minimize the amount of sunscreen they use.
I have noticed over the last few years that more people are wearing long sleeve rash guards at the beach. I would put it at about 50% of beach goers wearing one. Parents are having their kids wear them in greater numbers. I don’t think these folks are thinking reef safe as much as convenience but it helps anyway.
If you would like to use reef safe sunscreen but are put off by the higher price, you can buy kids sunscreen which use zinc and titanium instead of the chemicals. My wife and I use Banana Boat Kids SPF50 sunscreen instead of the specialty reef safe brands and save about 75% on the price.
If there are alternatives on the market, then this sounds like there is zero reason to be against it. Just use the stuff that doesn’t hurt the coral. It doesn’t sound like it is much of a financial burden.
OH wow, you got probably my dads dream job if you get to actually snorkle. Well, maybe if you did fishing, but then again who wants that as a job.
ETA _ my dad was stationed in Hawaii for a little bit. Nearly died surfing once.
My grandpa was stationed their fixing Navy planes during WWII.
Maui resident here - they’ve also started campaigning on the airlines to educate tourists of the ban passing out samples of oxybenzone and octinoxate free sunscreens.
The primary way to block UV is physical barriers (this is in fact what melanin does, it forms a protective cap that sits over the nucleus and physically blocks it by absorbing UV damage). Zinc and titanium are both effective at doing this; zinc in particular is probably relatively innocuous and is more effective (has broader spectrum coverage).
Oxybenzone is one of many UV-blocking compounds. It probably ends up in sunscreen mostly because it is cheap to manufacture and is also used as a UV blocker in plastics, but it’s by no means required to successfully block the sun.
My father-in-law (who is white) lives in HI, spends most of his days on the water, is extremely diligent about sun protection, and has been zincing himself religiously for decades.
AHA! FINALLY! I get to trot out one of my many crackpot theories!
Ahem…(cracks knuckles)…As a natural redhead who can’t find a sunscreen that will stay on long enough to do it’s damned job, I’ve developed some paranoid conspiracy theories. My current theory is that the so-called ‘active ingredients’ are all quackery. Suncreen is nothing but glue. The higher the SPF, the stickier the glue. It’s all the dirt, lint, and dog hair that sticks to the sunscreen that actually blocks the sun.
Yeah, I don’t always wear sunscreen, but when I do, it’s the ‘invisible’ zinc oxide stuff. It looks white even on my redhead skin - until I leave the house. It does absorb in and disappear in just a minute or two.
It’s funny, living in Denver, where you can watch the sun bleach and destroy everything but the rocks, that there a lot of people that keep to the delusion that they tan. I’m staring at them thinking, “Dude…I have a better tan than you.” You stare at their wrinkled, leathery faces and it’s obviously not working for them, but they still think they’ve evolved enough in 10-20 years to live barefaced under this sun.
We aren’t wearing cowboy hats around here because we’re big fans of westerns…
We were in Maui last summer and there was a lot of publicity about this issue around. Luckily, the sunscreen we brought happened to not have those ingredients, either, so we lucked out (especially since I had brought something the size of a quart bottle with the sunscreen in it). Yep, and zero sunburn for us, too. There are good products out there that don’t contain these ingredients.
First: those of you who think folks can just wander outside without sunscreen have clearly never had to deal with a loved one with a sun or skin sensitivity. Good on you.
Second: There are two major types of sunscreens, ones that use physical compounds to block radiation (these tend to leave a pale sheen to your skin), and ones that use compounds to make your skin do the blocking (and, of course, sunscreens that combine the two).
The always awesome Wirecutter did a great summary on the different types awhile back.
The short answer is there are both physical and “chemical” sunscreens that can do the job and that do not use these compounds, but you’ll need to shop smart and actually read the labels of what you buy.
From Scientific American, “A base tan only provides an SPF, or sun protection factor, of 3 or less, according to the U.S. surgeon general.” (emphasis mine)
When you combine the exorbitant price of sunscreen in the southern hemisphere with it’s utter necessity down here, it’s not one of those things you typically remain disorganised about for long.
