USA TODAY International Edition
Should balloons be banned? Many say yes
Impact on environment raises the possibility
As part of a service for an infant last year, the Sproles Family Funeral Home in New Castle, Indiana, attached a card with information about the deceased child to balloons and unleashed them – asking those who found the remembrances to post comments on the company’s website.
Some of the responses came from strangers hundreds of miles away, offering comforting thoughts to the grieving family.
Balloon releases are a fairly common practice at funerals, especially when they’re conducted for children, funeral director Tom Sproles said.
“It’s obviously symbolic that as we’re releasing balloons to the sky, we’re also releasing our loved one as well to heaven,’’ he said.
But where some see a touching tribute, others spot a danger to birds and marine life.
Ted Siegler, who studies the amount of plastic waste that reaches marine settings as a partner at DSM Environmental Services in Windsor, Vermont, believes helium-filled balloons should be banned because they so often escape and end up in the ocean.
“It drives me nuts when I see them,” he said, “because inevitably they’ll bring them to children’s birthday parties, and it doesn’t take very long until someone loses the grasp and it winds up into the atmosphere and it disappears and you don’t know where it’s headed.”
Latex balloons, typically synonymous with festive occasions such as birthday parties and graduations, 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 percent of the world’s marine debris: Such items as 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.
“They’re one piece of the puzzle,” said Emma Tonge, communications and outreach specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “They are a serious threat to wildlife simply because they are colorful 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 raises the question of whether the once-seemingly innocuous balloons may join the list of verboten articles.
Five 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, this year discontinued their decades-long tradition of unleashing 10,000 orange balloons as the players took the field in a nod to the university’s sustainability efforts.
Dan Flynn, chairman of the Balloon Council, noted that the percentage of balloons let go in the environment is minuscule compared with 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.