When thinking about Thailand, we usually think about great jungles, elephants, the beautiful beaches, and the big blue sea, with all its fascinating coral reefs. That is why Thailand is a popular holiday destination, and for example in 2018, around 38,5 million people visited the land of smiles.When spending the holidays by the sea, most people spend their time on the beach or do activities like snorkeling or diving. Therefore sunscreen is a must have. But what most visitors don’t know, is that using the wrong sun protection they can harm those beautiful places permanent.

Even waterproof Sunscreen is only waterproof to a limited extent. According to the American Weather and Oceanography Agency, 6.000 tons of sunscreen is added to the sea every year and pollute our oceans. The reefs of the world in particular suffer, first they are bleaching and then dying. Especially snorkelers, who want to enjoy the reefs, can be dangerous for them, because they get really close to the fish and corals.When it comes to sunscreen, it looks like we have many options, but there are only two types of filtering UV rays: chemical and mineral ones. Chemical UV filter are the most common ones, be-cause they are quickly absorbed by the skin. But the big disadvantage of those sun lotions is, that the ingredients used in the cream is poisoning our reefs. For example one of the most common ingredient is OCTOCRYLENE, which is present in four out of five European sunscreens and is suspected of being harmful to marine organisms.