A Survey of Beachgoers to Estimate Sunscreen Coastal Water Input and Potential Eco-Label Consumption: Contributions to Sustainable Tourism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The title is irregular and big need to be shorten and well

The abstract need be rearranged and summarized

The keywords is also irregular

These sections of the research paper still are extremely poorly written and contains significant repetition. The previous studies must be mentioned in a straightforward manner.

The main problem is not very clear and the innovation is also enough which the author overcome to solved the problem

The main contribution of should be listed in form of bullets at the end of the introduction

What is the main application of this work to the real world and how can be implemented need a separated discussion in the paper to cover this for better understanding of the work for other reader

 The discussion is missing

 

While this paper is comprehensive and ready for publication, it might be beneficial for future research to delve into a more in-depth socio-economic impact analysis.
Furthermore, future research might consider linking specific coastal changes with distinct anthropogenic projects to shed light on direct impacts

Comments on the Quality of English Language

revision are required to improve it 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General comments

The manuscript by Pallero et al. entitled “Assessment of beachgoers’ habits, sunscreen use, input into coastal water and intentionality consumption: steps toward a more sustainable coastal tourism” nicely summarizes the results of two site specific surveys on beachgoers habits with respect to their sunscreen use.

This manuscript could be of value, as it provides additional insight information on the use of sunscreen during beach associated leisure activities. Although it is not the first time such a survey has been carried out, it provides useful information considering potential regional differences in the sunscreen consumer habits. However, the manuscript requires some modifications before it can be considered acceptable for publication.

 

Specific comments

Line 38-42: “one of the pressures in beach tourism is derived form the use of sunscreens”. Please add other sources of “pressure” that is derived from tourism in order to allow for a more balanced assessment of the sunscreen topic. For instance, level and quality of sewage treatment plants (STP) in this specific area.  Amount of untreated wastewater being released into the ocean area. According to OECD (2020) only about 88.8% of the wastewater in Span is subject to STP treatment (primary: approx. 2%, second. approx. 30% and tertiary treatment about 58%); According to UN data base approx. 80% of the domestic wastewater is considered safely treated.

Line 65-66: It is suggested to update the reference Poiger et al. 2004, since there are more recent and even more realistic data available (e.g. Carrao AM, Becker RP, Colemann II JC, Kumari H. 2024. Measuring U.S. consumer sunscreen application at home and online: optimizing our methods to determine sunscreen application thickness for improved environmental emissions estimates. Environmental Challenges:100932; and please see also your own discussion section for appropriate references).

Line 74-75: Please note that none of the references cited here (18, 28-35) refer to the testing of marine ecosystems (e.g., mesocosms) rather than to single marine species tests. It is therefore suggested to rephrase this sentence accordingly.

Furthermore, it should be mentioned that at least some of the studies (e.g. Danovaro et al has some serious shortcomings in the test design and thus may not be used as a reliable data source (see also Mitchelmore CL, Burns EE, Conway A, Heyes A, Davies IA. 2021. A critical review of organic ultraviolet filter exposure, hazard, and risk to corals. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 40(4):967-988 & Moeller M, Pawlowski S, Petersen-Thiery M, Miller IB, Nietzer S, Heisel-Sure Y, Kellermann MY, Schupp PJ. 2021. Challenges in current coral reef protection - possible impacts of UV filters used in sunscreen products, a critical review. Frontiers in Marine Science 8:1-16)

Line 78: …”bioaccumulation of toxic ingredients…” please specify the bioaccumulation concern with respect to existing EU regulations and EU guidance documents (e.g. EU REACH, EU PBT Guidance documents). Please also specify the term “toxicity” with respect to the substance and to the species that was tested (as I assume that there was no toxic effect in the bivalve monitored).

Line 92-94: here the term “ecofriendly” was used in the survey although it is well known that this is not of scientifically sound. Replacing some organics UV filters by other inorganic UV filters (i.e. ZnO) known to be highly toxic to aquatic organisms is not ecofriendly rather than a marketing gag. The reviewer acknowledges the intention by the authors to evaluate the willingness to pay more for more sustainable products, which in case of ecofriendly sunscreens is rather misleading. It brings the reader also to some very nice but not unusual findings (“in the end it is a matter of budget, if you are willing to pay more for a sustainable product”…as it always is;-))

A more balanced assessment of UV filter compositions may be applied taking the intrinsic substance properties of both organic and inorganic UV filters into account (see also Pawlowski S, Herzog B, Petersen-Thiery M, Acker S. 2021. EcoSun Pass: A tool to evaluate the ecofriendiness of UV-filters used in sunscreen products. International Journal of Cosmetic Science 43(2):1-10).

It is therefore strongly recommended to clarify this within the manuscript in order to avoid missunderstandings between ecofriendly and non-ecofriendly sunscreens.

 

Line 102-106: The statement in this section is certainly not fully correct. Sunscreens are complex formulation, with UV filters (brought in as a composition of several different molecules) being the key elements. The ban of some UV filters (i.e. OMC, BP3, OCR) in some regions around the globe has created a new set of UV filter compositions lacking these UV filters or generally all organic UV filters by inorganic UV filters, called ecofriendly. However, it is not the entire formulation that has changed rather than the UV filter composition only. The merit of this change is that ZnO is highly toxic to aquatic organisms, whereas other UV filters are not (see also Pawlowski S, Luetjens LH, Preibisch A, Acker S, Petersen-Thiery M. 2023. Cosmetic UV filters in the environment - state of the art in EU regulations, science and possible knowledge gaps. International Journal of Cosmetic Science 45(Suppl. 1):52-66. doi:10.1111/ics.12898; Miller IB, Pawlowski S, Kellermann MY, Petersen-Thiery M, Moeller M, Nietzer S, Schupp PJ. 2021. Toxic effects of UV filters from sunscreens on coral reefs revisited - regulatory aspects for “reef safe” products. Environ. Sci. Eur. 33(74):1-13). So friendly spoken, those so-called ecofriendly sunscreens may be as worse as the previous ones, which even leads the EU commission to draft some regulations avoiding the use of ecolabels on for instance sunscreens.

It is suggested to rephrase this section accordingly.

Line 116-118: please note that tourism brings much more influence into coastal marine areas that just the direct release of sunscreens during swimming snorkeling. The manuscript would therefore highly benefit from adding such additional sources (e.g. wastewater, waste dumping etc.) in order to allow for a more balanced assessment.

Line 163-164: As indicated previously, please note that the term ecolabel is misleading, when it comes to the existing sunscreen products containing inorganic UV filters only.

Line 171: Would have been nice to see whether tourist are using water proof sunscreens which may be more suitable for swimming in the water. You may give some indications if this was part of the story, and if not, please explain why not.

Line 200-201: if the sunscreen transfer rate from skin to water was estimated to be 25%, what is happening to the remaining 75%? Could you please explain, where the rest is going to end in (e.g. washed off at the hotel, grew water, raw sewage water, sewage water treatment plant) in order to allow for a full picture of sunscreen fate. Especially if UV filters coming from poorly treated wastewater or sewage will enter the environment indirectly.

Line 319-323: If you estimations are much higher compared to previous ones, it is worth to critically evaluate why this was the case. However, making a simple calculation by considering a bathing season lasting from 1st Mai until 30th September (153 days in total) and the estimated sunscreen volume of 157372 L would indicate a daily use of approx. 1029 L sunscreen per day. This seems to be a significant amount; however, the corresponding volume of receiving ocean water within this Andalusian region remains unclear. Please provide an indication of the water volume associated with this region and add other sources of possible water contamination (domestic, industry, agro, etc.) in order to allow for a more balanced assessment and to estimate sunscreen/UV concentrations rather than absolute numbers.

Please also take into account that sunscreen also contain a significant amount of water and the concentration of individual UV filters is typically less than 10% depending on the SCCS approval (see also Osterwalder U, Sohn M, Herzog B. 2014. Global state of sunscreens. Photodermatology, Photoimmunology & Photomedicine 30(2-3):62-80).

 

Line 353-355: please also include other sources of waste discharges as this will allow for a more balanced assessment of possible impact on coastal marine life.

Line 383-407: please take also into account that the term ecofriendly as labelled at the sunscreen products may not necessarily reflect the true environmental hazard of the sunscreen formulation or the UV filters within, rather it is a marketing claim helping to sell sunscreen products containing inorganic UV filters only (see also previous comments regarding ZnO; see Zinc oxide 100.013.839 | ab1ed875-06ec-4db4-b59e-e52324caa7fa - ECHA CHEM (europa.eu) for more ZnO substance related hazard effects on aquatic organisms). Perhaps the authors can state that “The term ecofriendly as used on the sunscreen products may not reflect the intrinsic hazard properties of its ingredients rather it is used in this survey to evaluate the willingness of customers to pay more money to so-called more sustainable products” (whatever that means;-)); you may also make reference to the following evaluation tool allowing for an equal, scientifically sound and hazard based environmental assessment of organic/inorganic UV filters to optimize UV filter compositions with respect to its environmental impact: Pawlowski S, Herzog B, Petersen-Thiery M, Acker S. 2021. EcoSun Pass: A tool to evaluate the ecofriendiness of UV-filters used in sunscreen products. International Journal of Cosmetic Science 43(2):1-10.

Line 415-417: Please specify the term “characteristics”. It would be good to know to understand, which are valid for extrapolation of the results and which are not.

 

Line 419-422: 2…True quantity….”  I don´t think that this is the case, especially since the authors state in the same sentence that “not all the product applied reaches the coastal water” and the results are based on a survey without analytical confirmation of e.g. UV filter concentration at the two investigated bathing areas. In order to verify the results from the survey done, I believe it is essential to allow for a corresponding analytical measurement regime in the areas surveyed, which is consistent with the survey time (e.g. July and August 2022). Otherwise, the survey may be of limited use for e.g. more refined environmental risk assessments.

Therefore, its is suggested to consider these aspects into your conclusion.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Still, the title is very big

the related work need to be improved and organised in more logical way Please read these paper: doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.105323, https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2024.2310723

Every symbol in the equations should be described.

the research gap is not very clear at the end of introduction section please take a carefull look of i

Discussion section should be seperated section

for example 

1 .introduction 

2. Material and methods

3. Results 

4. discussion

5. Conclusion and future outline

Conclusion is very long and needs to be reduced

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

need a careful review

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf