Is the party over for balloons?

CHILDREN love them, especially at birthday parties.

But it doesn’t take very long until someone loses the grasp and it winds up into the atmosphere – it disappears and you don’t know where it’s headed.

Latex balloons, typically synonymous with festive occasions, have landed in the cross hairs of the environmental movement because of their potential to harm wildlife.

Balloons don’t present nearly as big a pollution problem as plastics, which are estimated to make up 85% of the world’s marine debris: Items like beverage bottles, bags, cutlery, plates, straws and balloon sticks litter beaches, seas and waterways far and wide. But the inflatable party staples have drawn more attention with the increased awareness of what happens to products released into the environment – many end up in the ocean.

Communications and outreach specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Emma Tonge said, “They are a serious threat to wildlife simply because they are colourful and bright, so wildlife might mistake them for food, and the strings can wrap around their bodies and make it difficult for them to swim or breathe.”

The success in recent years of campaigns to ban or discourage the use of plastic bags and straws has raised the question of whether the once-seemingly innocuous balloons may join the list of verboten articles.

Five US states – California, Connecticut, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia – already have forbidden mass balloon discharges, and several others have introduced Bills aimed at limiting how many can be sent floating into the skies at once.

The Clemson Tigers, who won the college football national championship in 2016, has discontinued their decades-long tradition of unleashing 10,000 orange balloons as the players take to the field in a nod to the university’s sustainability efforts.

Will future birthday celebrants have to settle for streamers and banners while forsaking the pleasure of chasing and popping balloons?

Likely not, but it’s best to keep them contained.

Dan Flynn, chairman of the Balloon Council, noted that the percentage of balloons let go in the environment is minuscule compared to how many are sold. He also clarified that balloons filled with air typically don’t rise high enough to present a problem.

The issue is with those inflated with helium or another gas lighter than air, whether they’re made from latex or the foil-and-polyester material commonly known as Mylar, because they can travel longer distances.

Mylar balloons, which conduct electricity, often get caught in power lines and have caused countless power outages – more than 1,000 last year in Southern California alone. The Balloon Council recommends they be sold only when tethered to a weight, following the requirement of a 1990 California law.

While Flynn said trade research has found no evidence of latex balloons by themselves causing harm to marine life – usually the animals have ingested plastic products as well – the industry has tried to educate customers about the proper way to handle them.

“Our message to our retailers, to our users, is, ‘Don’t let go’,” Flynn said.

There are varying estimates of how long balloons take to biodegrade, from six months to four years.

They’re not among the 10 items the European Commission listed in May as targeted for bans or phasing out in an attempt to reduce marine debris. That list is composed entirely of single-use plastics and it does include straws, which have been banned in Seattle, San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Though straws account for just a fraction of the plastics content in landfills, environmentalists see their banishment as a means to raise awareness to the importance of finding ways around reliance on single-use plastics. A 2017 study that estimated only 9% of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic made since the 1950s has been recycled; nearly 80% ended up in landfills or somewhere in the environment.

Given the greater urgency of addressing the worldwide plastics crisis, the movement to get rid of balloons – or at least further restrict them – will not take off so soon. But much like plastic bags and straws, they could become subject to the kind of campaign that brings their use crashing down. — USA Today/ Tribune News Service