Hawaii Bans Coral Killing Sun Creams!

Recently the state of Hawaii has passed a ban on sun creams containing Oxybenzone and Octinoxate, due to be enforced by Jan 2021. This is fantastic news for the scuba diving industry and a bold world first!

Other countries with marine parks such as Mexico and the Virgin islands have been steadily taking measures to encourage tourists to use reef safe sun cream. Sadly other countries have not had the same local support as that of Hawaii to outright ban sunscreen with reef damaging chemical cocktails.

Oxybenzone and Octinoxate are synthetic chemicals responsible for coral bleaching. They are shown to slow coral reproduction rates, cause extremely high mortality rates in young and new born corals and as a result cause drastic negative changes in the health of entire coral reef ecosystems.

Lots of things kill coral reefs but we know Oxybenzone prevents them from coming back Craig Downs, forensic ecotoxicologist

The diving and snorkeling industry in Hawaii is one of the main attractions and a big reason thousands of tourists flock there every year for sun filled holidays. In recent years there was noticeable change in the health of Hawaiian coral reefs. Many Hawaiian reefs showed rapidly declining health and therefore lowered survive-ability in the face of another global coral bleaching event.

Sunscreen Ban Information

It was therefore necessary for local law makers, tourist industry representatives and the general public to step in and do something about one of the issues identified, that of toxic chemical sunscreen’s washing off droves of ocean going visitors and poisoning delicate coral ecosystems.

Banning chemical sun cream was therefore a great first step in the right direction as studies have shown the highly detrimental effects of Oxybenzone and Octinoxate based chemical sun cream has on coral and marine life.

You can learn more about the Hawaiian sunscreen ban by watching the video below.