Then there was the lack of an enforcement mechanism, which Gabbard and Bohlen said was a direct response to requests from state agencies. “The sellers wanted more time before the ban went into effect and they basically bargained for a very generous two and a half years,” Bohlen said. “We’re very concerned about anything that adversely affects the ocean and the evidence seems to be that certain types of petrochemical sunscreens are harmful to the reefs and to other marine species,” said Ted Bohlen of the Hawaii Reef and Ocean Coalition, who advocated strongly for the 2018 legislation.īut supporters of the bill had to make concessions, including a provision that delayed the effective date until January 1. David Ige signed Senate Bill 2571 into law, making Hawaii the first place in the world to ban “the sale, offer of sale, and distribution of sunscreens that contain the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate” after many studies showed that those two chemicals cause genetic damage to marine life, including coral reefs. “But when we’re researching this again it appears DLNR is not the administering agency but it’s the director of the Department of Health.” “When we first researched the bill, if we got it correctly, we’re thinking it falls under water pollution, which would be the Department of Land and Natural Resources,” he said.

Rose said his department is going to sit down in the coming weeks to determine not only internal policy for addressing violations but also where to send the report. Darren Rose of the Kauai County police department. “As far as we can tell in our system, we haven’t received any complaints and I would think if we did, our officers wouldn’t even know what to do,” said Lt. If a law enforcement agency did get a report that a store was selling banned sunscreens, there’s confusion over what steps to take - one agency says it’s still trying to work out what the law says about which state department is in charge. Mike Gabbard, who introduced Senate Bill 2571 in 2018. “As we were going through the process the state agencies made it very clear that they didn’t want to be the beach police … and there’s no funding allocated to create new positions,” said state Sen. Selling sunscreen containing oxybenzone, such as this one, is illegal. The bill doesn’t outline any penalties for breaking the law or designate an agency to enforce the ban. Hawaii’s ban on selling sunscreens containing the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate has encouraged the industry to change, substituting new ingredients and offering more mineral-based sunscreens.īut several months after the law went into effect, and as advocates push for the ban to include other chemicals, stores that violate the law appear to have little to fear - at least not yet.

Hawaii reef safe sunscreen law