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05th May 2018

US state bans the sale of suncream

The state of Hawaii has voted to ban suncream products that use chemicals harmful to their coral reefs

Carl Kinsella

The state of Hawaii has voted to ban suncream products that use chemicals harmful to their coral reefs

The bill, which was introduced by Democratic Senator Mike Gabbard, will ban any products containing chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate.

According to the BBC, these chemicals are used in over 3,500 of the most popular sunscreen products.

The bill was passed by the Hawaii State Senate, and will now go before the state’s Democratic governor David Ige, who is likely to sign the bill. The bill would not come into effect until 2021.

Coral reefs across the world are suffering as a result of chemical bleaching. Recently, a $379 million strategy was announced in order to save the Great Barrier Reef from dying.

One of the authors of the report that led to Hawaii’s new law wrote “any small effort to reduce oxybenzone pollution could mean that a coral reef survives a long, hot summer, or that a degraded area recovers.”