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Hawaii has become the first US state to ban the sale of sunscreens containing two common chemicals because of their damaging impact on coral reefs.
But there is far less enthusiasm for a similar ban in Australia, with some experts questioning the evidence behind Hawaii's decision.
What is coral bleaching?
- Occurs when abnormal environmental conditions cause coral to expel tiny photosynthetic algae, called zooxanthellae
- Loss of colourful algae causes coral to turn white and "bleach"
- Bleached coral can recover if the temperature drops and zooxanthellae are able to recolonise them, otherwise it may die
The chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate are found in some of the most popular sunscreens used around the world.
There have been concerns for some time about their impact on coral reefs.
Hawaii's decision was partly based on a report from 2015.
Ruth Gates from the Hawaii Institute for Marine Biology explained its significance on Hawaiian television at the time.
"The temperature is not good right now, it's high, corals are bleaching in response," she said.
"You add on a pollutant like the ones found in sunscreen, and what you end up [with] is a perfect storm."
Australian authorities not convinced
But back home, authorities and health bodies are not nearly as enthusiastic about banning these sunscreens.
"It's still a matter of balancing our planet health with human health when we know that two out of three Australians will develop skin cancer in their lifetime," Cancer Council Australia CEO Sanchia Aranda said.
Skin cancer statistics:
- 7 per cent of all Australians aged over 20 had a skin cancer excised between 2011 and 2014 — 183,000 skin cancers removed
- 74 per cent of those came from the same 47 per cent of skin cancer patients
- More men than women had skin cancers removed
Professor Aranda said there was still no conclusive scientific evidence the chemicals caused coral bleaching.
"If there was evidence for marine damage strongly and the TGA, who regulates sunscreen and the chemicals that go into sunscreen, believed that it was harmful, then we would also seek to support that," she said.
Professor Aranda said Australia was already moving towards eliminating the chemicals from sunscreens.
Cancer Council products no longer contain oxybenzone, which is related to allergies, and it is phasing out octinoxate.
Professor Aranda said the Cancer Council was reviewing the formula for "classic zinc" to remove the chemical, and it had already been discontinued in the lip balm.
"[But] we can't say what's in other sunscreens," she said.
"We suspect that there certainly will be a lot of other sunscreens that contain those two products."
'Banning sunscreens is a little bit overkill'
Professor Terry Hughes from James Cook University has led research into the recent bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef.
He said previous studies looking at the impact of these chemicals on coral were limited to high concentrations of the chemicals in small environments.
"In the real world, and on a coral reef, the concentrations are much much more dilute," he explained.
Professor Hughes said the real issues affecting coral reefs were climate change and vegetation management.
He said politicians and policy makers tended to deal with relatively easy problems.
"People make a long list of bad things that human beings do to coral reefs — I would place sunscreen at number 200."
Topics: oceans-and-reefs, skin-cancer, chemicals-and-pharmaceuticals, hawaii, australia, south-brisbane-4101
First posted