Creating a sunscreen that doesn't kill coral
“Everything is bad for the environment.”
That's the unformed, melodramatic thought that crossed my mind upon reading about sunscreen and its terminal effect on coral. The news came via Cyrus Sutton who's creating his own sunscreen motivated by personal health and also the health of the natural world – particularly coral reefs.
It was the first I'd heard about the coral-killing properties of sunscreen and I was admittedly dubious. Coral seems to be the favoured battleground for environmentalists making their cases about climate change. The collapse of coral reefs. The bleaching of coral reefs. Was Sutton engaging in a bit of bandwagonesque?
A study released yesterday shows that Cyrus Sutton was indeed correct, and also that I was late to the game. Since 2008 it's been suspected that an active ingredient in popular sunscreens has a deleterious effect on coral, however the study released yesterday was explicit in its findings.
It found that oxybenzone, a UV-filtering chemical compound found in many sunscreens, can be fatal to baby coral and damaging to mature coral in high concentrations. Most alarming was its potency; even in concentrations as low as 62 parts per trillion, equivalent to a drop of water in six and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools, oxybenzone damages coral.
During the study measurements of oxybenzone around coral reefs were found in concentrations ranging from 800 parts per trillion to 1.4 parts per million, or 12 times the concentrations needed to harm coral. The numbers are formidable.
Oxybenzone is found in 3,500 brands of sunscreen worldwide and it's estimated between 6,000 and 14,000 tonnes of sunscreen is discharged into the ocean each year, much of it on or near vulnerable coral reefs. And while the study was only conducted in Hawaii and the US Virgin Islands the results can be extrapolated across the globe to wherever coral reefs grow.
“The use of oxybenzone-containing products needs to be seriously deliberated in islands and areas where coral reef conservation is a critical issue,” said Craig Downs who was a co-author of the study.
As mentioned, I was a bit late to the game, the destructive properties having been suspected for a while. Here in Australia research has been underway to find natural alternatives to the chemical ingredients in sunscreen. CSIRO have found just such an alternative, and in a lovely slice of irony they found it in coral.
In 2013, scientists at CSIRO working in conjunction with cosmetics company Larissa Bright identified the molecules that give shallow water coral protection from the sun. The research is vague on what the molecules are called or exactly how they act, most likely due to the commercial involvement of Larissa Bright. This research work will have a proprietary outcome.
What is known is that the molecules they've isolated and reproduced filter both UVA and UVB light, they're clear and colourless so can be used in any cream emulsion, and they wont be ready for another three years...
...till then Cyrus Sutton is Kickstarting his Manda sunscreen, Surf Yogis make a good paste even though they spam our page, and Surf Mud are a natural Australian alternative.
And as far as I know, none of the above are bad for the environment.
(Image above courtesy Surf Yogis)
Comments
I remember seeing Bear Grylls in Indo or the Maldives rubbing sea slug all over himself and claiming it was for sun protection...
plenty of sea slugs in the lagoon here at the Ox. It's slimy shitt though.
yeah FR not to mention the act of getting the sea slugs to produce their natural sticky white sunscreen is a disgraceful sight for onlookers...
Sorry to be a party pooper, but how can one correlate the use of sunscreen to the death of corals thousands km's away from consistent human interaction ?
Places like middle of the coral sea, Rowley shoals etc
Our reefs are getting flogged because of the thousands of tonnes of fertilisers, acid run off and sediment overloading caused by............us humans fucking with the environment, farming, changing river flows, dredging channels, making boat harbours, warmer oceans, global warming etc
The trial testing by Cyrus Sutton may be correct, but I bet I could put strawberry jam or peanut butter into a bucket with coral and that would kill it
Good on the bloke for having a go, but in the big picture this is just one grain of sand on 80 Mile beach
Well the "extrapolating across the globe" really meant wherever humans were using said sunscreen. Not intended to mean distant atolls far from habitation.
My goodness, Stu, if you think it's bandwagonesque to associate coral reefs with climate change you are remarkably late to the game. That kind assertion places you in some seriously backward company. There are good scientific reasons for the linkages being made betweenness climate and coral, worth doing some homework.
Fuck mate, read it again, with a bit of comprehension this time, eh?
Swellnet should real good look at themselves. How can any educated person believe this shit?
Obviously you guys can allow shit to be posted without any due diligence.
Coral bleaching due to slightly warmer water is the same as when you take a indoor plant outside to live. Yes it will probably die back but in time it will adapt and grow back.
I just spent time diving the reef and yes I did see coral bleaching but then on the same coral I saw it growing back. Was it the same host that lived in the coral or another one I'am not sure. That is probably something in between adaptation and evolution.
Shit we can't have that.
Well here's the study Nick3, knock yourself out: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00244-015-0227-7
Straight from the journal article Nick..
Stylophora pistillata planulae exposed to various treatments of benzophenone-3 (BP-3).
"Planulae under control conditions have an elongated, ‘‘cucumber-like’’ morphology with organized rows of zooxanthellae-containing gastrodermal cells running from the aboral pole to the oral pole (Fig. 1a; ‘‘brown dots’’ in the rows are individual zooxanthella cells). Normal plan- ulae are in near-constant motion, being propelled by cilia that cover the elongated body. Within the first 4 h of exposure of planulae to BP-3 in both light and darkness, planulae showed a significant reduction in ciliary move- ment and the morphology had significantly changed from the elongated form to a deformed ‘‘dewdrop’’ (Fig. 1b). At 228 lg/L BP-3, planulae contain noticeably less zooxan- thellae (brown spots) indicative of ‘‘bleaching’’ (Fig. 1c). The mouth of the planula at the oral pole began to increase three- to fivefold in diameter at the end of the 8-h exposure (Fig. 1d). By the end of the 8 h of exposure for all BP-3 concentrations, the oral pole was recessed into the body in deformed planulae (Fig. 1b) and the epidermis of all the deformed planulae took on a white opaque hue. For plan- ulae exposed to the higher concentrations of BP-3, it was apparent that the epidermal layer had lost its typical transparency and become opaque (Fig. 1, bracket indicates opaqueness of epidermal layer).
At the end of the 8-h exposure, all planulae exposed to all of the concentrations of BP-3 became sessile. Addi- tionally, there was a positive relationship between exposure to increasing concentrations of BP-3 and planula bleaching (Figs.1a–e, 2). Bleaching is the loss of symbiotic dinoflagellate zooxanthellae, photosynthetic pigments, or both. Chlorophyll fluorescence as an indicator of the con- centration of chlorophyll a pigment corroborated these visual observations; exposure to BP-3, whether in light or darkness, caused planulae to bleach (Fig. 2). The Lowest
Observable Effect Concentration for inducing chlorophyll- defined bleaching is 2.28 lg/L in the light (P \ 0.001, Dunnett’s Method) and 22.8 lg/L in the dark (P \ 0.01, Dunnett’s Method)."
Enough there to keep you busy.
Killing coral all comes from Craigs wetsuit bucket in the back of his skanky car.
Welly, that's contained to the bucket and doesn't enter the car or the water.
Maybe we need an " uninformed dickhead of the week" comment section Stu?
Plenty of contenders here already!
Was this study done in a laboratory?
In the big scheme of the worlds ocean's how many parts per million does the sun screen dilute to.
Once again climate change has to be brought into this. Funny That.
I love how the the findings of a study that has been undertaken by a team of specialist scientists can be swept under the rug by clowns with a simple "what bullshit" etc.
Can you imagine having an argument like that in the real world? Probably no need for law school in that case.
Unless you have undertaken a study and/or there is no scientific evidence to the contrary, you have to take the findings at face value.
P.S I don't think the article is suggesting that you putting on your banana boat before you dive in for a midday session at Winki is going to wipe out the GBR.
I am not disputing their finding. Just how this actually works in real world.
I am pretty sure if I pull a fish out of the ocean and put it in a glass. Then fill the glass with my own piss it will die.
Last time I pissed in the ocean I didn't see any fish float up.
What the fuck are you on about?
Actually, what the fuck are you on?
Nick, this is why they deal with such small concentrations in the experiments, to replicate what the dilutions out in the ocean may be.
I love the word specialist. Why are they specialist.
I have had specialist come around to do carpentry, plumbing and electrical work for me then when they have left I then have to fix their fuck ups.
Most scientist are fools because they believe what happens in a controlled environment of the lab works the same out in the real world but on a much larger scale. Not that simple. Please don't be dazzled by this so called intellects.
Its like have a argument with a philosopher. At first you are taken back by their so called knowledge. How smart they are. Then as they go on and you have a chance to really think about what they are saying you realise they are just talking shit and using big words to make them sound like a genius.
So pfunk and prawn you can put them on a pedestal and let them make you feel like a dumb ass.
Hahaha. Trolling? Surely!?!
That's the conclusion I'm tending towards.
You know what. You're absolutely right. I just cancelled my subscription to New Scientist.
.
Might need to choose your tradies a bit better mate
nick3, you really are a grade A fuckwit mate! I would suggest it is you that needs a trip to the room of mirrors not swellnet.
Dunno (and don't care) what you do for a crust but you must be crap at it given your hatred of "specialists"! I'd also suggest the problem is with your choice of tradies not the word specilaist, if you're having to continually "fix" their fuck ups perhaps you need to think about who you're hiring.
Thanks Braudildo. A least I 'am a specialist fuckwit.
You are 'F' grade fuckwit. Most tradies are the same.
I am sure you are by far a more successful person than me.
Yes I 'am crap. But I do own my house in Burranneer and have 1 holiday house at Manyana and also one on the water at Bawley Point.
So being crap is a good thing for me.
But please fill me in on how good you are at earning a crust. I am sure you have much more than me.
.
Nick, I think you may have made a typo entering the web address and have wound up on the wrong website comments section. Easy to do. I think the website you're looking for is blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/
Back on topic:
Did they do any work on the effects of spray tan or coconut oil on coral reefs?
I'll be in QLD for schoolies, and that's a lot closer than this great white shark usually gets to the great barrier reef. I don't want no guilt when I'm cooling off up at broady and some of my tan inevitably washes off. It's enough to make your pecs contract just thinking about it!
You good sir, have become an absolute blessing to these forums. Please keep up the good work.
Stunet. Trolling because I have a opinion that does not blend with yours.
Grow up. Like a bunch of kids in the school yard picking on someone who does not conform to their beliefs.
By the way I actually read New Scientist and enjoy it immensely.
There's a difference between ignorance and alternative opinions Nick.
And to think that I've been applying sunscreen to our GWS friends over all these years in the deluded belief that I was 'helping the environment'
Scientists are fools, tradies are fuckwits ...
nick3, you're like the swellnet version of cartman.
Except you aren't even mildly amusing. But carry on, there's whole swaths of society you haven't offended yet.
Please show me were I a called a tradie a fuckwit or scientist fools.
Explain why I am ignorant. Am I ignorant because you believe that their science is 100% foolproof right.
Who is ignorant?
Nick your whole first post is one of the biggest load of bollocks posted on the internet, you actually said "Obviously you guys can allow shit to be posted without any due diligence" but the links to the peer reviewed study and findings was right there. However you went to the great barrier reef and thought, yeah nah, it looks alright what would an egg head know anyway? Have you been to any other reefs in popular tropical tourist locations Nick? How are they holding up from your goggle eye view?
Despite more postings form the study you then went on a rambling cavalcade of stupidity the likes of which is surely up there with internet folklore.
You can continue, and that's fine, but be assured that your views are fundamentally wrong.
he's a shit stirrer with form:
http://www.swellnet.com/forums/politico/13496
http://www.swellnet.com/comment/488673
Robert van Woesik, a coral expert at the Florida Institute of Technology, was not involved in the research.
He questions whether conditions in the study accurately reflect those found in nature.
For example, the coral samples were exposed to sunscreen while in plastic bags to avoid contaminating the reefs. But van Woesik worries this prevented dilution of the chemicals through natural water circulation.
"Under normal situations on a coral reef, corals would not be subjected to these high concentrations because of rapid dilution," van Woesik said.
This is not new. 2008 this was brought up.
Now you guys are telling Robert Van Woesik is as dumb as me. Fuck you people are stupid.
By the way my Father is probably one of the greatest scientist of all time when it comes to laser and uranium enrichment.
My stepfather is a great scientist. Both them laugh at who passes as scientist.
And?
Is this being offered as an example of nuture versus nature? Intergenerational dilution of intelligence?
Or just that you're the black sheep of the family?
By the way I am more then happy to sit down and debate without the internet or notes.
My knowledge Versus your knowledge.
My ability to analyse things without notes versus your ability to do the same.
"Your ability to analyze things"?
Jeez man, you can't even read a date. The 'net snooping you just did about Robert van Woesik was from 2011 while this study came out last week.
Further, Van Woseik worked on a different aspect of coral decay.
Furtherer, that quote from him is only found regurgitated across SCUBA sites with no citation. Can't find it in any academic texts.
Furthererer, Robert Van Woesik believes in climate change. Google it.
Last point not related but the irony was too sweet.
PS: Say g'day to Poppa Oppenheimer for me.
Good on you Nick, you just falsified the research. Except, kind of not,,,,
Please get your dad's help with picking tradies in the future.
hee hee Nick3, 'fess up...it's really you Tones, ain't it? Plenty of time on your hands now, I s'pose
but I'm sure you'll be booked solid in no time
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/23/tony-abbott-joins-...
A little bit of sunscreen killing coral. Ridiculous!
Next they'll be saying that my deodorant was making a hole in the ozone layer!
What about zinc? Does this have the same effect? When I got the message that sunscreen may be cancerous, zinc was its replacement.
here is one for you nick
Stick to your guns Nick. The same critics used to blame it on 'global warming'!
Wow just when i was feeling chastened for a cheeky spam,i read these comments. Heavy.
Think I'd prefer the spam Gibbsy. Heavy indeed...
Stunet it was about 2008. Do your research.
The subject was about sunscreen killing coral and yes he might believe in climate change killing coral but he was questioning the theory about coral being killed by sunscreen in the ocean under normal circumstances.
Prawnsmell is that supposed to be me giving you a whipping.
Mk0.0001 please explain how I falsified anything. Please be a bit smarter than that.
You guys make me laugh. Unlike you I will actually question the science and that is in my genes.
I know that a lot of these study's/papers are written by egotistical idiots who want to make a name for themselves or get some sort of funding.
MK0.000001 The problem is my dad is a scientist 100% and like most like him they struggle with the real world situations.
That is our difference.
Good on ya Nick! Keep it up mate..
not just one of those extremist idiots! :) there is a shit load of em too
Please confirm to myself, what grade of sunscreen will deteriorate the reef quicker!
+50? Obviously.
+30 Moderately
+0 No depletion of reefs!
Geez I'm lucky I don't use sunscreen then;)
I agree with Stunet - his research is always thorough!!??
Of all the water and oceanic pollutants sunscreen is the most direct and personal. And is therefore the thin end of the wedge for people to start thinking of all the other pollutants that end up in water. We started this some time ago:
www.goingblue.org
I declare that I am partisan right up front and hope you will forgive me that fact once I take you deeper into this subject…. You can then decide you want to do a follow on story on this.
Everything written in the article is true. A similar study was published in 2008:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080129-sunscreen-coral.html
It was reading that article that prompted us to develop a sunscreen that wouldn’t do this damage. And to do so scientifically.
We had an entire range of ingredients tested on coral. Those that damaged it were rejected.
We then made a product, Aethic Sôvée, and tested this again. It passed leaving the coral intact.
All the testing was done by the same Prof Roberto Danovaro and his team who first discovered the problem. He has a global reputation in Scientific circles:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/multicellular-life-fou...
The resulting formula was then patented. As you probably know, that process requires for test protocols and results to be verified by independent scientific peers. Ours passed and is now the only formula to be patented ecocompatible.
It is not yet available in the U.S. for this reason:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/05/11/why-the...
However, we hope soon to generate the data for a FDA application.
EWG are influential and interesting and I believe completely well intentioned. However I am yet to understand what testing they actually do.
When I approached them (twice) to test and classify our product I was told:
Hi Allard,
I'm following up on your sunscreen submission. Our team reviewed your ingredient lists and determined that we cannot score your products at this time. Although we can rate your product on hazard/safety, we cannot make assessments on the sunscreen efficacy based on our current methodology and spectra analysis. These two aspects are necessary for us to rate the overall product score.
We will keep your data on file, and if we start rating European sunscreens, we will include yours.
I apologize for any inconvenience.
Best,
Paul
----------------
Paul Pestano
Research Analyst
Environmental Working Group
skindeep@ewg.org
Hi Allard,
Thank you for contacting us. At this time, we have not developed a scoring methodology that would assess European sunscreens using the same or similar metrics as American products. Certain limitations such as the differences in product labeling and testing prevent us from doing so. I do apologize that we cannot accommodate.
Best,
Paul
----------------
Paul Pestano
Research Analyst
Environmental Working Group
skindeep@ewg.org
Finally, on the point of one of the biggest claimants of biodegradability, Badger, there is this from their own website:
Are Badger's Sunscreens Reef Safe and/or Reef Friendly?
There are no actual 'Reef Safe' tests, nor are there any official 'Reef Safe' certifications, for sunscreens or any other products. We believe our sunscreens do not have a negative impact on coral reefs for a few reasons:
Badger sunscreens do not contain any of the ingredients shown to harm coral and most are water resistant.
The only active ingredient in each of our sunscreens is the mineral zinc oxide (non-nano). This has been used in skin care for thousands of years and is the same ingredient used in diaper creams, calamine lotion, and toothpastes. Unlike oxybenzone and other sunscreen ingredients there is no evidence that zinc oxide harms coral. It is a powdered mineral that will not dissolve in seawater and instead will eventually settle to the seafloor, like silt, and become buried in the sediment. Read more about zinc oxide.
Not so I’m afraid.
There are evidently tests. And Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxide ARE a problem:
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2014/acs-presspac-...
And finally, an important distinction between biodegradable (not enough) and ecocompatible.
http://ecocompatiblesunscreens.com/biodegradable-or-ecocompatible/
Hope all this is of help in furthering our joint cause of harming the oceans considerably less.