12 November 2015 - Business View Caribbean
Opening
Lines
New Scientific Study Finds Coral Reefs
Under Attack From Chemical In Sunscreen
As Global Bleaching Event Hits
A new study published today in a toxicology journal
has found that a chemical widely used in personal
care products such as sunscreen, poses an ecologi-
cal threat to corals and coral reefs and threatens their
existence.
Oxybenzone is found in over 3,500 sunscreen prod-
ucts worldwide, and pollutes coral reefs from swim-
mers wearing sunscreens and through wastewater
discharges from municipal sewage outfalls and from
coastal septic systems.
The study comes less than two weeks after NOAA (Na-
tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) de-
clared the third ever global coral bleaching event and
warned that locally produced threats to coral, such as
pollution, stress the health of corals and decrease the
likelihood that they will resist bleaching, or recover
