In a bill signed this week, the US Virgin Islands have outlawed the import of all creams containing oxybenzone, ocitnoxate and octocrylene from September 30.
It will become illegal for retailers to sell such creams on the islands from next March.
The ‘three Os’ as they are called are known to cause damage to coral and sealife, according to the US Food and Drug Administration, but they are widely found in popular sunscreen brands.
It is possible to find sunscreens without these chemicals, but they tend to be more expensive.
Hawaii and Florida’s Key West have outlawed the sale of sunscreen products using oxybenzone and octinoxate from January 2021, but the US Virgin Islands’ ban will kick in first and include products with octocrylene as well.
The bill was passed unanimously.
“Tourism in the Virgin Islands is our lifeblood – but to ensure we continue to entice visitors we need to protect our coral reefs as part of our quest to initiate sustainable tourism,” said governor Albert Bryan. The US territory’s retailers may not place new orders for sunscreens containing the banned chemicals and may not receive shipments of existing orders after September 30.
The full ban takes effect in March 2020. It is not known whether holidaymakers will be banned from bringing sunscreen products containing the chemicals into the islands for their own personal use.
