Release a helium balloon on a bright, sunny day, watch it magically float up into the sky, and I dare you not to feel some variety of exhilaration, a sense of wonder, a longing¹ for freedom, suspense².... It's like a 21-gun salute³, but quieter. It's like a Chinese Sky Lantern ceremony, but for the daytime.People release big bunches of balloons for memorial services, grand openings, birthday parties and parades. It's just a Thing We Do, and it's fun. But it's really, really terrible for the environment.

 

在一个阳光明媚的日子里，你放飞了一个氦气球，并看着它神奇地漂浮在天空中。我敢肯定，这时的你会感到一丝兴奋与惊喜，还有对自由的渴望。这就像观看21响礼炮一样，只是更安静。这也像中国人放飞孔明灯一样，只是在白天而已。人们会在纪念仪式、盛大开幕式、生日聚会和游行中放飞大量的气球。虽然这只是人们喜欢做的一件有趣的事，但是这对环境来说真的非常糟糕。

 

When a balloon ascends⁴ into the heavens, it doesn't end up on Jupiter. You know this. Although a helium balloon can rise to altitudes of 8 kilometers into Earth's atmosphere, it's got to come back down eventually, and when it does, it wreaks⁵ some havoc⁶. That colorful little scrap⁷ of latex may end up living in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It could get tangled⁸ up in the flippers of a sea turtle or be eaten by one who mistakes it for a jellyfish. Or a bighorn sheep could mistake it for forage⁹, or it might land in some farmer's pasture, where a cow chokes on the string. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, animals of the land, sea and air are equally susceptible¹⁰ to mistaking deflated¹¹ balloons for food, or, arguably worse, getting tangled up and strangled by the ribbon attached to it.

 

And it's true, some balloons do break down eventually. A big part of the reason releasing balloons is permitted in so many places is that latex balloons are technically¹² biodegradable -- it takes one between six months and four years to break down completely, though they deteriorate¹³ in seawater more slowly than they do on land. Mylar balloons, on the other hand, are made out of NASA-grade nylon and are not biodegradable, so they can hang out in the environment indefinitely.

 

So, if balloons in the environment are so bad, why isn't releasing them outlawed¹⁴? Well, in many areas, it is. And a few places in the UK and Australia have banned the release of balloons of all kinds. In the US, California, Connecticut, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia and some cities like Louisville, Kentucky, and Huntsville, Alabama have put the kibosh on balloon releases. But the thing about helium balloons is they don't care about our random¹⁵ geographic¹⁶ boundaries. They land wherever they want to land.

 

Hundreds of balloons drifting slowly into the wild blue yonder might give you the feels, but is a brief display of color and zero confetti cleanup at your party worth a bunch of dead birds and turtles and many beaches full of trash? Absolutely not. But, on a related note, the world may be running out of helium soon anyway -- giving the turtles and the birds a reason to throw their own great big party, sans balloons.

 

Helium balloons can interfere¹⁷ with airplanes. In Singapore, you have to get permission from a government aviation regulation agency in order to release balloons.

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