It’s reported that more than 80% of suncream brands still contribute to coral damage. With no regulation around ‘reef-safe’ claims, it’s hoped that consumers will be able to identify products safe for marine ecosystems by spotting the Reef Protection Factor on bottles.
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00:00So, a few years ago, science showed that sunscreens, particularly the UV filters in most marketable
00:11sunscreens, cause severe damage to the marine ecosystem, but in invertebrates in general,
00:16but also moving into things like fish as well. So the more we researched, the more we understood
00:21that what we were basically putting into the water was harmful for the environment. This
00:27led to a lot of organizations and companies to either start banning suncreens in certain
00:34countries like Palau and even in states like Hawaii. And then the companies were looking
00:39into things like reef safe material or ingredients which had not been shown to be toxic to various
00:46invertebrates. But there was no regulation and there was no testing. So this meant that
00:51a company could just put anything they wanted on their branding. And this led to effectively
00:59greenwashing in many cases where organizations could, or consumers as well, were not necessarily
01:07clear on what was actually going to be or what they were buying off the shelf. So we needed
01:12that strength in regulation and we also needed to look into sunscreens which could actually
01:17do maybe positive rather than negative. It's reported that more than 80% of sun cream brands
01:23still contribute to coral damage. With no regulation around reef safe claims, it's hoped that consumers
01:29will be able to identify products safe for marine ecosystem safety by the reef protection factor
01:36badge on some sun cream bottles. Yeah, so RPF is named the reef protection factor and it's a new
01:44accreditation which is a non-profit accreditation. So no one's generating money from this initiative
01:52and it's all about making it clear from the manufacturer's side to the consumer's side
01:57that what you're buying is reef safe. It's quite tricky to just look at the ingredients and decide
02:02for yourself if something is actually safe for the environment. What's safe for humans doesn't necessarily
02:08mean it's safe for the rest of the organisms in our environment and that's where the difference is because
02:13up until now there hasn't been that accreditation everything the sun creams come into contact
02:19obviously as you shower through wastewater into the streams and then into the sea and so it needs to
02:25be safe in the freshwater environment as well.