Hawaii County Council members gave tentative approval Tuesday to a ban on the sale of all but two kinds of sunscreen on the Big Island on the condition that county attorneys can prove the ban is enforceable.
West Hawaii council members Holeka Inaba and Rebecca Villegas presented at a committee meeting a bill that would prohibit the sale or distribution of any sunscreen that uses anything except titanium dioxide or zinc oxide as active ingredients.
Inaba said that those are the only two chemicals out of about 16 commonly used sunscreen active ingredients that are both effective and considered generally safe for coral reefs and other marine life by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“Instead of writing a bill saying what people can’t do, it’s easier to write one saying what they can do,” Villegas said, adding that manufacturers can get around less explicit bans by simply changing the name of a prohibited substance. By limiting the permitted substances to only two compounds, Villegas said the bill eliminates ambiguity.
However, while the rest of the committee supported the bill on principle — and eventually all voted in favor of it — some were skeptical about the practicality of the measure.
Hilo Councilman Aaron Chung pointed out that the state already has implemented a similar ban on sunscreens that use what he called “The Two O’s”: oxybenzone and octinoxate. But he added that nobody on the council is actually a chemist and said he wanted more information about why oxybenzone and octinoxateare are considered harmful while the substances excluded by the proposed ban are not.
“What else is there between the Two O’s and titanium dioxide and zinc oxide?” Chung asked. “What are we eliminating in the process?”
Kohala Councilman Tim Richards noted with reservations that the council is “taking on face value that these chemicals (titanium dioxide and zinc oxide) are effective,” and requested further information about the science involved.
Chung added that he would like to ask the county Corporation Counsel whether state law allows the county to implement such a ban on its own, or whether the proposed ban contradicts the state ban in any way. However, he said he will support the bill provisionally until that discussion is held at a meeting of the full council.
Ramzi Mansour, director of the county Department of Environmental Management, said he approved of the ban, but said he isn’t sure his department has the resources to enforce it.
“The intention is that businesses will care about the concerns of the community and will follow the law,” Inaba said.
With the committee voting unanimously to support the bill, it will next go before the full council for further discussion.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.