Featured Image Credit: Cosmopolitan
Summer: when families pack themselves into minivans amid towels, beach chairs and coolers and head to the shores. In today’s society, sunblock is an integral part of summer beach vacations. Whether in creams, sprays, gels or balms, sunblock makes its way to the beach.
But have you ever considered what happens to that sunblock when you jump in the ocean? Where does it go?
Scientists are finding that sunblock isn’t as great for the environment as it is for our skin. When your sunblock washes off and into the sea, certain ingredients can become toxic to some of the ocean’s tiniest creatures. Those tiny creatures are the main food source for many other marine animals, which are the backbone of our oceans.
The study, which appears in the American Chemical Society’s journalĀ Environmental Science & Technology, explains that key ingredients in sunscreen, like titanium dioxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles, can react with ultraviolet light from the sun and form new compounds.
The new compounds, like hydrogen peroxide, could be highly toxic.
In turn, those high levels of hydrogen peroxide would harm phytoplankton, the microscopic algae that somehow feed everything. Animals like small fish and shrimp feast on that same algae, which in turn feeds even the largest creatures in the ocean: whales.
How’s that for cause and effect?
As for what we can to do help the situation, remember a simple rule. When applying sunblock, always wait the suggested amount of time for ingredients to properly absorb into the skin to minimize sunblock runoff and protect marine animals.