Drop in the Bucket
No matter when you were born, you witnessed a revolution in the use of synthetic chemicals — better living through chemistry.
The revolution was slow, barely perceptible, like a drop in the bucket. Drip, drip, over your whole lifespan.
The phrase “a drop in the bucket” suggests something insignificant and therefore acceptable for us to ignore. Its complement is “the straw that broke the camel’s back” which suggests our realization that something previously insignificant has suddenly become unacceptable to us.
A drop of sunscreen disappears when rubbed onto your skin and the residue on your hands is washed down the drain. What could be more like a drop in the bucket than that? Well, sunscreen doesn’t like the bucket; it’s practically insoluble in water. It’s hydrophobic. It’s a petrochemical. That’s why you notice the iridescent oil slick on the water after swimming. And that’s why it doesn’t disappear — it accumulates.
The main active ingredient in sunscreen, Oxybenzone, is toxic to plankton and other marine life at a concentration of 62 parts per trillion — equivalent to one drop in six and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools. It works by altering the wavelength of the sun’s radiation, reducing the damage after being absorbed in your skin. Once absorbed, it enters your bloodstream and your body has no way to remove it. Within your body, it acts as an endocrine disruptor, basically inhibiting normal hormonal processes. Oxybenzone is linked to obesity, diabetes, female reproduction issues, male reproduction issues, hormone-sensitive cancers in females, prostate cancer in males, thyroid abnormalities, and neurodevelopment and neuroendocrine problems.
I should say that male bodies have no way to remove oxybenzone. Females do: childbirth. Infants are especially at risk of neurodevelopmental issues from their mother’s use of sunscreen.
Those reproductive issues are why it’s also killing coral reefs — it inhibits coral from reproducing.
It’s somewhat unfortunate that chemical sunscreens are referred to as unsafe for coral reefs. Most of us don’t live anywhere near a coral reef. This deflection allows us to ignore it, like a drop in the bucket. We just use it then wash it down the drain. Yet municipal wastewater treatment does not remove oxybenzone, so it ultimately ends up in the ocean.
Mineral sunscreen — zinc oxide or titanium oxide — is considered “reef safe”. You might recall zinc oxide as that opaque white stuff on the noses of lifeguards at the pool. It’s visible because it doesn’t get absorbed into your body. Zinc oxide protects your skin by reflecting the sun’s radiation, rather than by absorbing and altering it.
You might ask, “what did people use for sunscreen hundreds of years ago?” Most people used hats, frankly. But the answer is zinc oxide. In fact, zinc oxide was being used for medicinal purposes as long ago as 500 B.C.E.
You might also ask, “I’m just one person, why should I give up the convenience of chemical sunscreen?” Assuming you’re okay with the health risks to you and your unborn child, at some point, your one drop of sunscreen, your contribution to dead plankton, might become the straw that broke the camel’s back. You see, plankton are the very bottom of the food chain. Not only do ocean animals depend on plankton, but we also depend on ocean animals more than you realize. At some point, the food chain collapses.
Plankton also absorb CO2 and do so much more effectively than trees on land. Marine bacteria take a few hours to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and grow 1,000,000 times quicker than terrestrial plants. It takes about twenty years for plant biomass (e.g., trees) to double on land, but only 3 days in the ocean.
Regenerating carbon-absorbing life in the ocean has greater leverage than on land.
Nudge theory would suggest that one way to get people to choose mineral sunscreen is to remove chemical sunscreens from the shelf. Eventually, that will happen. The USFDA has labeled these chemicals as “unsafe” but hasn’t yet banned them. However, many local governments have, including Hawaii, Belize, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and several other tropical destinations.
Ingredients to avoid:
- Oxybenzone
- Octinoxate (Octyl methoxycinnamate)
- Homosalate
- Octisalate
- Octocrylene
- Avobenzone
Better living through chemistry hasn’t always been the case. It often takes us awhile to realize how deadly some chemicals are. Quietly, we’ve managed to kill off over 50% of plankton. Sure, there are multiple causes and oxybenzone is only one. It just happens to be relatively simple for you to eliminate while offering comparatively huge benefits.
Can sunscreen really destroy the planet? Well, it is certainly damaging it. More and more of it ends up in the ocean and kills more and more plankton. Then the ocean absorbs less and less CO2 from the atmosphere. And more and more marine life dies off. Eventually, a tipping point will be reached. Sunscreen won’t be the only culprit, but eliminating chemical sunscreen from your life might help the reefs and the plankton rebound. Please consider this small change to help regenerate the ocean.
