Clair Daniels

It's time for my occasional reminder that balloons don't fly up to grandma up in heaven. They go up about five miles, burst, and fall back down. What lands is a translucent scrap of latex with a ribbon attached, floating on water, stuck on land, looking almost exactly like a jellyfish. Sea turtles, seabirds and fish eat them. Balloons are the deadliest piece of plastic a seabird can ingest, something like 32 times more likely to kill than a hard fragment, because soft latex folds and blocks the gut instead of passing through. The ribbon stays intact for years, and it wraps around necks, wings and flippers long after the balloon itself is gone. The biodegradable balloons don't fix the problem. University of Tasmania researchers buried latex balloons in industrial compost, the fastest breakdown environment that exists, and dug them up 16 weeks later fully intact. Louisiana made intentional releases a finable offense this year. Most of Europe has banned them. If you want to mark something: plant a tree, light a candle, blow bubbles, ring a bell. Whatever you're releasing it for, it isn't going where you want it to go.