Blog 52: Vacation Spoiler: Sunscreen kills coral

As I spend my Thanksgiving holiday visiting some family in Hawaii, I can't help but try to balance my health and the planet's well-being with a lot of frustration. You see? while I need sunscreen to protect me from the sun, the sunscreen that goes into the water is killing the corals.

National Geographic published a story on this. First I thought that maybe the sunscreen was preventing the coral to get the sun that it needed to flourish, just as it prevents the damaging rays to burn my skin, but it is not that simple:

"Four commonly found sunscreen ingredients can awaken dormant viruses in the symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae that live inside reef-building coral species.
The chemicals cause the viruses to replicate until their algae hosts explode, spilling viruses into the surrounding seawater, where they can infect neighboring coral communities.
Zooxanthellae provide coral with food energy through photosynthesis and contribute to the organisms' vibrant color. Without them, the coral "bleaches"—turns white—and dies."

The bad ingredients, if you want to read your sunscreen label are: paraben, cinnamate, benzophenone, and a camphor derivative.

One researcher says that banning sunscreen won't be necessary, and recommends two things swimmers can do to reduce their impact on coral: "Use sunscreens with physical filters, which reflect instead of absorb ultraviolet radiation; and use eco-friendly chemical sunscreens."