Does sunscreen contain endocrine disruptors? I do remember reading that sunscreen is bad for the environment. Let’s take a look at the Wikipedia article on sunscreen. It contains a list of chemicals that are potentially contained within sunscreen.
20190205/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen
All of the chemicals have one or more 6-member carbon rings, and some even have 5-member carbon rings. Suffice it to say, many chemicals in sunscreen have the ability to readily transform into an endocrine disruptor, if they are not already an endocrine disruptor themselves. The only chemicals in sunscreen that do not have the ability to transform into an endocrine disruptor are titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. However, titanium dioxide has a tendency to accumulate in the ground and is known to be harmful to animals in higher concentrations. Zinc oxide is practically the only chemical in sunscreen that cannot be readily transformed into a hazardous chemical.
Alas, I must admit. My stated suspicion against chemicals with 6-member carbon rings or 5-member carbon rings is a really tough one. It’s only natural, due to the elemental structure of carbon, that many organic chemicals will have 6-member or 5-member rings within them. Surely such a recommended restriction would be enough to make any chemical industry pundit upset. If there is no statistical evidence that our chemical is dangerous, why are you criticizing us for the potential risks that might come about due to uncontrolled transformation of our chemical?
But, at the same time, I must admit. The bottom-line risks as I’ve stated are real. By definition, the natural environment is the environment thus uncontrolled by humans. By the rules of nature’s game, anything can happen spontaneously. It’s just that, in our artificial world, we have a choice of how many of what types of artificial chemicals we pump, dump, or accidentally drop into the natural world as our starting point. From there, the chaos of unchecked chemical transformation can take its force. Under this line of reasoning, it honestly doesn’t matter if the chemical in its pristine, artifically manufactured form is safe. In nature, it is inevitable that it’s shape will get mutated, so it is, in a sense, a red herring to assume that the unmutated chemical being safe means that the chemical is wholistically safe.
By far and large, the most potent means of taking an otherwise harmless chemical and turning it into a hazardous one by spontaneous, uncontrolled means is by breaking bonds. It is less likely, though still possible, that after bonds are broken, chemicals can recombine into a larger molecule.
Interestingly, when I think about this carefully, I realize that none of the chemicals I use in my film negative archival case are any of the stated hazardous chemicals, chemicals that can form hazardous byproducts if broken down. My included chemicals are strictly limited to polypropylene, polyethylene, cellulose acetate (film base), gelatin (emulsion), silver (for black-and-white image), and organic dyes (for color image), cellulose (for paper in labels), and other dyes/pigments for printed/written labels. Matter of fact, I can state this in an interesting catch-phrase.
If it can destroy your photographs, then it can also destroy your planet.
When you think about this deeper, these statements imply that one way or another, we would have to undergo some major lifestyle shifts as a society to eliminate the risk that uncontrolled breakdown of these chemicals poses to the environment and our own human health. Either we would have to abandon the chemicals entirely, or should we continue to use them, we would have to treat them as highly controlled substances. We would have to be dilligent that not a single object of the hazardous chemicals gets lost. Disposal would have strict accounting, garbage trucks would be secured so that garbage cannot accidentally blow out of the top of garbage trucks, and all final disposal would happen in highly controlled, enclosed incinerators. The incinerators would burn hot enough to completely break down the organic molecules, and all flue gases would be electrostatically filtered to remove heavy metals from the gas and only pass through the broken down simple organic molecules to the open air.
Even without uncontrolled breakdown of the chemicals, inhaling dust from the pristine chemicals can quite often have a negative effect on human health too. So, at our current rates, even the highly controlled disposal lifestyle is not enough. Basically our long good, long-term sustainable option is to completely switch away from hazardous chemicals in the environments and food containers of our everyday life. The hazardous chemicals would only be permissible in speciality industrial environments, where it is reasonable to assume the custodians of such environments can ensure the controlled disposal stated to be necessary.
Natural rubber does not contain a chemical structure that would lend itself to being an endocrine disruptor when broken down. The synthetic rubber cis-polyisoprene rubber is designed to be the same chemical structure as natural rubber. Likewise, acrylic is a safe chemical under break-down.
Note that although some people are allergic to natural rubber latex, this applies primarily to the antigenic proteins in natural rubber latex. Hence, reduction of this from natural rubber latex or use of pure synthetic cis-polyisoprene rubber can mitigate this problem.
20190207/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber