Richard Jones at Soft Machines reports that Andrew Johnson, of the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Wallingford estimates that “130 tonnes of nano-titanium dioxide a year is used in sunscreens in the UK” and probably most of this ends up in the water supply aftre being washed off in the shower.
A couple of points struck me as odd about this. Firstly, a traditional British summer (with or without climate change) consists of leaden skies and heavy showers pierced by an occisional shaft of sunlight and any susnscreen I use invariably ends up in the water supply of Spain, California or China. Secondly, sales of nanoparticle sunscreens seem to be pretty much negligable.