How balloon releases impact the environment

JACKSON, Tenn. — Littering can look different in several ways, and can impact the environment and even the wildlife, which are crucial to our future and way of living.

Balloon releases are often held to remember the life of someone or to celebrate a success, but when we release those balloons into the sky, it has a direct affect on the environment.

“It’s kind of littering. People don’t see it that way because the balloons float up in the sky and seem to disappear, so they don’t experience the part where what goes up must come back down,” said Allen Foley, a Wildlife Biologist for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.

When balloons are released, at some point they expand and burst, causing pieces or even entire balloons, strings or ribbons to scatter around different areas.

“Unless you do something like a coastal clean up where you pick up lots of pieces over a huge area,” Foley said. “But otherwise, it’s spread out over a huge area and nobody really appreciates what’s going on with it.”

When these pieces scatter, they can harm the environment around them, including wildlife and livestock.

“There’s two main issues: that animals can eat balloons and that’s not good or they can become entangled with or eat the materials that are attached to balloons,” Foley said.

Balloon ingestion isn’t the biggest threat to wildlife, but it can add up and eventually become a bigger issue in the future.

“They’re often done to remember loved ones or celebrations, but we have lots of other ways of doing that. And some of our loved ones might have been pretty adamant about, ‘Let’s keep our environment clean,'” Foley said.

So before you plan on, possibly, having a balloon release, Foley urges you to think of a more eco-friendly alternative to celebrate or remember an event or loved one.

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