Omg, I am gobsmacked! Trigger warning - animal cruelty.

[Brigante9]

This company apparently thinks it’s a good idea to send up sky lanterns at this time to ‘support’ the NHS. I’ve seen damage to pets, horses, property and £70K worth of burnt up hay at a local farmer’s, horrible burns on a friend’s horse when the lantern landed on his rug and burnt all his back. I really think the fire brigade, NHS and other emergency services could do without people lighting a lantern and sending it god knows where right now!

Please feel free to email their complaints department (or not, if you think AIBU!) These things cause untold damage every year. I think this is very poor timing. I understand companies are struggling, but this is just irresponsible and does not support the NHS.

*the only - not thinly

I emailed them & left social media posts saying I've donated the cost of a sky lantern, £6, to the NHS. As that would be actually supporting the NHS rather than adding to their profit margins.

I did a beach clean up once, in a rural area, and the thing that was most noticeable was the strings of helium balloons. They are indestructable and get entwined with seaweed, rubbish, plastic and end up on beaches.
Stop buying them everyone.

I’ll have a look at Twitter later and add to it there. Their Facebook page is full of people saying FFS no, lots of those people are NHS employees. I know some councils have made it difficult for them and, I thought, banned them. I know one event in Kent was forced to cancel because they wanted to release lanterns. Their web page has lots about their glee DEFRA’s lack of backbone and they obviously lobby against a ban.

Was coming on to post about the German zoo fire. It was awful.

Gosh I wish people wouldn’t do this! DP set off to work early hours of the morning and one had landed on the neighbours roof burning away, luckily he saw and was able to bang on their door to wake them up but could of been completely different had he have not set off say 10 minutes later or gone the other way!

Wow, some people will try any desperate way of profiteering from this crisis won’t they? How dreadful.

I completed the complaint form and will complain on all their social media channels. The director's name is on Companies House, Simply Fabs Ltd if you want to call him out on social media.
If someone starts a petition to get a bill through parliament, banning this along with helium balloons, or the release of all balloons (whatever is necessary to protect wildlife and the oceans) I would like to sign it.

Helium balloons are just as awful, there is not an infinite amount of helium to be had and it cannot be manufactured , it’s used in MRI scanners and is already in short supply.

Had a look at Twitter, lots of people rightly complaining but not very strategically (no retweets with relevant hashtags, no key wildlife campaigners etc copied in). I’m going to try and get this in front of some Press later as I have a few contacts already riled by exploitation of Covid19 for selfish commercial reasons. There are some very arrogant responses from the company on their FB page. 😡

My neighbours trampoline was set alight by one of these lanterns a few wks ago. Absolutely atrocious behaviour. Those lanterns are death traps.

I note on their FB page that they have stopped selling through 3rd parties because 6/10 of their test purchases were positive for asbestos!
www.facebook.com/NightSkyLantern/?tn=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARAIanbLA73hDUggrsamahUFWbeDnQpcOpWz2s5I6zDITJMNIW4504Gex5VK2rZ468_ekzfR5pQcpcCV

Post is a few comments down, scroll a bit.

Last time I was at Crosby beach I was shocked by the amount of helium balloons washed ashore. They should be banned.

If you google ‘sky lantern nhs’ you get pages of local press featuring local fire services begging people not to do it.

I've signed petition after petition about banning the bloody things.

It's a disgrace.

I genuinely thought these were banned years ago due to the obvious health and safety risks!?
Seeing their caption “Support UK NHS” is sickening.

They are not.

Balloon releases are not, are we can never have a discussion because it usually kicks off after a big release and when someone mentions they are awful things we get shouted down and we’re told we are disrespectful of the occasion for the release.

I hate people releasing any kind of rubbish into the sky. Absurd and dangerous tradition.

Disgraceful.

Instead of buying these may I suggest you spend the money on Captain Tom's appeal. He is 100 years old at the end of this month and set off to raise £1000 for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden. He is currently on over £900k iirc.

Morning folks - we're just bobbing on to let you know that we've added a trigger warning to the title of the thread, as requested by a fair few posters.

We think it's absolutely understandable that folk want to have this discussion but it's a good idea to warn MNers about distressing images before they click.

Thanks all.

Anyone who needs a trigger warning because of a photo of a dead bird needs to get a grip frankly. It's not exactly a scene from SAW is it?

I have emailed, they say they aim to respond in 2 hours - I bet they won’t as there must be 100’s of complaints by now! Will post it when/if I ever receive it!

I find pictures of wildlife harmed by human stupidity as upsetting as does the next person, but a trigger warning? JFC

If someone starts a petition to get a bill through parliament, banning this along with helium balloons, or the release of all balloons (whatever is necessary to protect wildlife and the oceans) I would like to sign it.

Ditto.

there is not an infinite amount of helium to be had and it cannot be manufactured , it’s used in MRI scanners and is already in short supply.

Wasn't aware that it was a scarce resource ipadipod - thank you.