To ask everyone to stop releasing balloons

[Nixandwotsit]

Why - just why - are crowds of people still thinking that it's a good idea to mourn a death or celebrate an occasion by releasing 100's of fucking balloons into the sky? They land, animals get tangled in them, sometimes they eat them or the ribbons, then some of them die. The balloons don't just vanish like magic fairy dust, they lay around for years littering the countryside.
Am I being unreasonable to ask everyone to just think for a few minutes and stop doing this? And don't even get me started on those lethal bloody chinese lanterns.

Aren't those ones paper?

Aren't what paper?

Chinese lanterns

I think it’s because some people either don’t think or don’t care.

Some young people did it recently near us but without being unkind it was the type of group that didn’t really have much of a social conscience. All about instant culture, looks and likes.

A local charity still includes ballon releases as a way of remembering.

@Northernsoullover

There was a terrible tragedy near me this last week. The community has been out in force today... releasing balloons. I feel terrible for feeling cross about it but I do.

I am wondering if you are local to me. Are the balloons orange

Oh this is a class thing is it!

How dull.

Talking about pollution. Cars are pretty bad. As an aside.

Oh, lanterns?

What happens when they fall somewhere? They start fires. They also have sharp bamboo or other structure to keep their shape, when swallowed it kills animals. The animals suffer horrendously.

But they are pretty to look at, you say...

@Nixandwotsit

I'll come back and haunt anyone who commemorates me with a balloon release.

I’ve told my DH that if I ever die in a horrible accident I’ll haunt anyone who commemorates my life by littering or by tacky, messy roadside memorials and to make sure my feelings are known on the funeral invitations 😂

Oh this is a class thing is it

Oh FFS. I'm as working class as they come, I abhor the things.

I agree, I also hate the plastic packaging left on flowers left at the sites of accidents.

Yanbu.
It was done recently in our town and it kicked off on the local news page with lots of people saying it's bad for wildlife and littering.
I didn't say anything on the page but I have asked the council to make it quite clear it's unacceptable littering. They're spineless and said they weren't going to do anything about it. So I've emailed them again quoting the marine conservation group.

Well I don't know Chardonnay I've never seen one!

'Some young people did it recently near us but without being unkind it was the type of group that didn’t really have much of a social conscience. All about instant culture, looks and likes.'

No judgement there!

@BalladOfBarryAndFreda

And all the Instagram knobs spending hundreds on balloon arches. Environmental disaster. Time for balloons to go the same way as straws.

Yeah, my youngest just turned one and the online ante natal group I joined is full of photos of 1st birthdays with massive ballon garlands, and those clear boxes that spell out ONE and are full of balloons. I think it’s really excessive and unnecessary.

I get that people want to enjoy their lives but if we are serious about trying to limit damage to the environment, not taking the piss with stuff like this is quite an easy win in my opinion but obviously plenty disagree

Medical grade helium and balloon gas helium are different things

Nope, helium is helium. They don't bother purifying balloon helium to the same grade as medical helium, for obvious reasons, which is why helium used in balloons wouldn’t be used in scanners, but it’s still helium.

I couldn't agree more. Why not commemorate someone in a way that helps the environment, such as planting a tree?

Some stupid fuckwit set alight to the tree right outside my house with a Chinese lantern a few years ago.

As soon as he lit the thing it flew straight into the tree.

'Some young people did it recently near us but without being unkind it was the type of group that didn’t really have much of a social conscience. All about instant culture, looks and likes.'

How is that judgement about class? I see it aimed at the instant gratification instagram crowd and those who look at them for inspiration.

Why would it be a class thing? I’ve been to a posh wedding where lanterns were released and a posh birthday where balloons were released. It is naff and selfish whoever does it.

People simply think their right to demonstrate their grief outweighs any other effect.

Personally I also think it’s hypocritical- releasing balloons and sending them up to the sky to loved ones in heaven- i bet not one of them has set foot in a church in years.

It’s not a class issue, it’s a brain capacity issue.

@NiceGerbil The problem with lanterns isn't that they are plastic (they generally aren't) but that they are a little fire, attached to what is essentially kindling, that is taken wherever the breeze goes and can drop to the ground/get stuck in a tree/land on a sheep completely out of control of the person who let it go.

You can’t call people out on it either- someone had a video of a chinese lantern falling in a ball of flames. Loads of comments on how bad it was, dangerous, environment etc.

Then the releaser posted saying she’d has a miscarriage and she did it every year in memory of her loss. Tone immediately to switched to sorry for your loss, beautiful way to remember…

Another one for banning fireworks, or making them silent. And making sure there's nothing in them that can land on fields (sticks, plastic, smouldering remnants) to damage animals and fields

@NiceGerbil

Sorry Chinese ones.

Paper and I bit of fuel to burn.

That's totally different surely to plastic helium balloons. They also often have metallic coatings.

Chinese lanterns need a structure or they would collapse. The structure is often fine wire. If they are the "biodegradable" ones it's bamboo. So in both cases killers of both domestic and wild animals. Anyway, it hardly matters what they are made of as they are fires in the sky. We've given examples of what that can mean - the German zoo fire in which many animals perished. Farm land, hay barns and stables burning down. My friend's horse with his rug burned and melted on to his back...

Everyone who's young and into the Instagram thing has a low IQ?

Yes that's much better!

I actually think a lot of people still don't know. A few years ago I was very much a lone voice of boring negativity, and it's not changed all that much since. I'm all for threads like this - may help to raise awareness a little?