Balloons Blow provides information to educate people about the destructive effects released balloons have on animals, people, and the environment, and strives to inspire and promote an eco-conscious lifestyle.
All released balloons, including those falsely marketed as “biodegradable latex,” return to Earth as ugly litter. They kill countless animals and cause dangerous power outages.
Balloons are also a waste of Helium, a finite resource. Balloons can travel thousands of miles and pollute the most remote and pristine places.There are many alternatives to balloon releases. Instead of littering the planet by letting balloons go, you can instead have fun, celebrate, and remember with environmentally-friendly alternatives.
Don’t Let Them Go! That’s the message we’re trying to get out. When we first started cleaning Florida’s beaches 20 years ago with our parents, we would never find balloons. As the years went on we would find a few more here & there. Now, both in our 20’s, we continue our weekly beach cleanups & every year we find more & more balloons. Of course we collect much more washed up plastic than ever as well, but the disturbing thing about balloon pollution is that it is “celebrating by littering.” Since we started keeping track in 2011, we have collected thousands of balloons. Although the Mylar balloons are more visible, we find many more latex balloons, perhaps because the balloon industry has so many fooled by falsely marketing latex balloons as “biodegradable”, “environmentally friendly” & “safe to release”. When in actuality, these latex balloons are the ones most commonly being found in the stomach’s of dead animals during necropsies. In 2013, we found 1,567 balloons – 1,098 were latex. It is very alarming, the amount of trash that gets washed ashore on our beaches, but it is particularly troubling that people release balloons on purpose to celebrate, to honor loved ones, or to just mindlessly watch it float away. This is the reason we had to create http://www.BalloonsBlow.org, a website dedicated to educating people about the danger & destruction that released balloons can cause. Animals – marine & terrestrial, wild & domestic – commonly mistake them for food causing intestinal blockage, or get entangled in the ribbons, both leading to a slow & agonizing death. There are countless websites & Facebook pages promoting balloon releases. The balloon industry & balloon sellers market latex balloons as “environmentally-friendly” & “biodegradable” & therefore “harmless”, but we show proof their claims are not true: http://www.balloonsblow.org/photo-gallery Power outages caused by Mylar balloons contacting electrical power lines effect hundreds of thousands of people each year. Helium is also a nonrenewable resource required for much more important things, like science & medical applications. There are laws concerning balloon releases in several states in the U.S. & many countries around the world, yet many unknowing celebrators, grieving groups, & others, are arranging balloon releases worldwide. Honoring a loved one or celebrating by releasing balloons (litter that can choke, entangle, & kill wildlife, livestock, or pets) is irresponsible & should be stopped altogether. Hopefully people will realize this danger & get creative & earth-friendly with their celebrations, like these alternatives: http://www.balloonsblow.org/environmentally-friendly-alternatives, & we will keep trying to get the word out that: Balloons Blow…Don’t Let Them Go!
