Sunscreen Components Are a New Environmental Concern in Coastal Waters: An Overview
Since ancient times, humans have felt the need to protect their skin from the harmful effects of the sun: first with the use of vegetable oils or mud that were applied on the skin and then with the wearing of clothes, hats, or umbrellas. Today, the use of
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ontents 1 Brief History of Sun Protection 2 Previous Concepts of UV Radiation and Sunscreen’s Composition and Use Habits 3 Source of UVFs in Coastal Ecosystems 3.1 Directly from the Bathers’ Skin 3.2 Indirectly Through the WWTP Effluents 3.3 Atmospheric Depositions 4 Occurrence and Fate of UVFs in Coastal Ecosystems 5 Concluding Remarks References
Abstract Since ancient times, humans have felt the need to protect their skin from the harmful effects of the sun: first with the use of vegetable oils or mud that were applied on the skin and then with the wearing of clothes, hats, or umbrellas. Today, the use of sunscreens around the world has become widespread. It has been shown that the use of these cosmetics can release large quantities of chemicals into coastal waters, either directly through bathing or indirectly through waste water treatment plants and atmospheric depositions. Due to the nature of the active ingredients of sunscreens, organic and inorganic UV filters, it has been proven that they can bioaccumulate and bioconcentrate in sediments and biota and can enter the food chain, being a problem whose true magnitude is still unknown. Keywords Coastal tourism, Solar radiation, Sunscreen, UV filters
D. Sánchez-Quiles (*), J. Blasco, and A. Tovar-Sánchez Department of Ecology and Coastal Management, Institute of Marine Sciences of Andalusia (CSIC), Puerto Real, Cádiz, Spain e-mail: [email protected] Julián Blasco, Antonio Tovar-Sánchez, and David Sánchez-Quiles (eds.), Sunscreens in Coastal Ecosystems: Occurrence, Behavior, Effect and Risk, Hdb Env Chem, DOI 10.1007/698_2019_439, © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sánchez-Quiles et al.
1 Brief History of Sun Protection Throughout the history of human beings, they have felt the need to protect their skin from sunlight: in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, Greece, and Rome, they used any kind of clothes and umbrellas to protect their skin from the sun; even in ancient Egypt, pale skin was ideal among women, who also used a mixture of clay and mineral powders, especially between people with high social status [1–3]. But it was many centuries after, in 1801, when Johann Wilhelm Ritter discovered the ultraviolet radiation (UV) [4]. Some years later, in 1820, an experiment by Sir Everard Home corroborated that some component of sunlight could be more damaging to the skin than heat: he put his hands under the sunlight and covered one of them with a black cloth. His results showed how the uncovered hand burned even when the hand under the black cloth reached a higher temperature [5]. And, in 1889, Dr. E. J. Widmark proved that UV radiation was responsible for sunburn [6]. All these findings led to the commercialization of the first sunscreen in 1928 in the USA which contains two active ingredients: benzyl salicylate and benzyl cinnamate [3]. From this date the sequence of events accelerated: in 1933 the first commercialized sunscreen in Germany contains benzimidazole sulfonic acid. In France, the first sunscreen became available in 1936. During World War II
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