Lots of people love balloons - especially children of all ages! Their bright colours and shiny surfaces are attractive to many and they can be a great way of adding fun to an event or a party game. At seaside resorts such as our neighbouring Southend-on-Sea, or Clacton further north, huge clouds of foil shapes beckon to the holidaymakers on the esplanades, no doubt adding to the pressure on parents giving in to 'pester power'. But there is a dark side to these cheery items that many never realise. Strolling round the remote coast of Wallasea Island, you may see a different, less attractive aspect to these cheery items, as our landscape becomes the final resting place for many escaped balloons.
I don't want to sound like a killjoy, but the free range balloon can be a real problem to the environment. Once the balloons return to the ground, they become a persistent type of litter that can be hazardous to wildlife for years, if not decades. While they inevitably are a hazard to land animals, discarded balloons are a particularly serious danger to many marine animals if they fall into water. Large fish, and many seabirds grab and swallow the deflated balloons, mistaking them for food such as jellyfish or small fish. The balloon will then clog up the digestive system and cause the animal to starve to death. In addition, many birds become tangled in the strings and tags attached to the balloons and drown as a result.
The ballon industry and NABAS, the UK's Balloon Trade Association, is very aware of its responsibilities to the environment and has issued a Code of Conduct for balloon releases. They state that on release, a balloon will float up to a height of approximately 5 miles and then it becomes brittle and shatters, the small pieces being distributed over a wide area. Only natural latex rubber balloons and biodegradable components must be used in balloon releases. Balloons must be hand tied; plastic valves should not be used and any attached labels must be paper, preferably recycled. They claim that latex balloons are an environmentally friendly product, made of natural rubber latex (NRL) which is a natural product coming from rubber trees that are grown in certain areas of the tropics. The NRL is obtained by tapping from mature trees and is a sustainable crop providing employment for many agricultural workers in some of the poorest areas of the world. As a consequence of NRL cultivation and the consumption of latex products, the planting and maintenance of rubber tree plantations helps towards the prevention of tropical rainforest deforestation. This contributes significantly to the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, produced by industrialised nations and a major source of global warming.
On the other hand, Keep Britain Tidy believes that the best way in which to prevent problems caused by balloon releases is not to release them in the first place. Balloon releases are not specifically mentioned as littering in the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 though, so it would be a matter for the courts to decide as to whether they constituted an act of littering. The RSPB supports Marine Conservation Society’s campaign against balloon releases. We try to dissuade people from releasing balloons, and recommend that people think of alternatives that do not harm the environment. However, If people are determined to go ahead with a release despite knowing the damage they will do as a result, we ask them to use biodegradable balloons instead of normal ones. Although biodegradable balloons disintegrate quicker than normal balloons,at about the rate of an oak leaf, even they are dangerous for a whole year after they land in the sea.The RSPB does not run balloon races and we do not use balloons on stands or at shows where they can ‘escape’.
So, call me a partypooper, but I'm afraid we'll not be having balloons at our events on the Wild Coast - but who needs coloured foil and helium when we have nature's palette spread for miles and miles around us and the fresh sea air breezes in our hair?
I've gone wild on Wallasea!
What a brilliant piece! Very well researched, I'm always seeing dead and dying baloons around the island but hadn't realised the depth of the problem, when you think that Wallasea is just a tiny fraction of our green and pleasant land, how big is the problem at a national level? The mind boggles! Full marks for a fscinating article Hilary, 5 stars from me.
Growing up, my Mum always claimed to feel bad when a bird would slam head-first into our living room window. If she "really" felt bad, though, she'd have moved the bird feeder outside.