Havering Friends of the Earth

Keep your balloons tethered

by Peter Caton; first published 13-Dec-2024

Some discarded balloons in the countryside - Peter Caton

Most of us wouldn't just drop something on the ground - littering is anti-social and an offence. But how many people let go of a balloon, watch it float away into the sky and not give a second thought as to where it will end up?

What goes up must come down and one day every balloon will fall to earth. Rarely do I complete a walk along the Essex coast without seeing one. It might be on land or it might be in the sea, but either way it will be a hazard to wildlife. It could be eaten and block a creature's digestive system, causing it to starve. The ribbon might get wrapped around a bird's neck, trapping or strangling it; a slow and sad death. Turtles are particularly at risk as they mistake them for jelly fish and swallow them, but even whales have been found dead after ingesting balloons.

Some balloons are described as biodegradable latex. Biodegradable is a vague term. Yes, natural rubber will break down but it takes many years. Don't fall for the misleading marketing that suggests these will compost.

Over a hundred local authorities have banned mass balloon releases on their parks and public spaces but even if you have just one balloon, please consider where this might end up before you think of releasing it.

But please don't use sky (Chinese) lanterns instead - not only are they litter - they are fire too. Like balloons they don't just simply disappear. They float back down to earth. Fires have been started and animals burned by falling lanterns.

Not long ago a sky lantern caused a major fire in the West Midlands, requiring more than 200 firefighters, 39 appliances and 3 hydraulic platforms. The lanterns cause a significant fire hazard and endanger livestock, agriculture, thatched properties and much more. Please don't release them.

Finally, a word about helium, a gas with unique properties. It was formed by very slow radioactive decay in certain rocks and cannot be made artificially. The only stable supplies are found deep underground, often in pockets of natural gas. There is no chemical way of manufacturing Helium.

Helium is used in a range of industrial and medical applications but one of its most important functions is in MRI scanners. Liquid helium is the coldest element on earth and keeping an MRI's electromagnet superconductive requires extreme cold. Helium is a finite resource and once released into the atmosphere it is gone forever. When supplies run out MRIs will have to shut down. Should we really be wasting it in balloons?