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Previous menu Governance. Previous menu Who EPA works with. Previous menu EPA's environmental performance. Previous menu News, updates and student resources. Previous menu Contact us. You are here: Back to Report litter and pollution Home Report litter and pollution Report balloon releases. Balloon releases and the law From 1 July , EPA will have increased powers to prevent harm to the environment from pollution and waste.
It is for that reason that a handful of states including but not limited to California, Connecticut, Florida, Tennessee, New York, Texas and Virginia have recently passed legislation restricting the release of balloons not used in scientific experiment. Blue Ocean Society researchers have been recording debris observed from whale watch boats off the New England coasts for over 8 years.
Balloons have become the most common debris over the last 5 years. Unfortunately, helium itself has a fairly significant ecological footprint. While it is not pollutive, it is unsustainable.
While we will never truly run out of helium it is always present in the air it is important to never be wasteful of any valuable resource. Time for a complete ban on mass balloon releases? Because for the past few years there has been a war of words, between the multi-million dollar balloon industry and environmentalists.
Despite balloonaholics bombarding anybody who will listen with rather suspect evidence to the contrary, the facts suggest that balloons released into the environment really do pose a serious threat to wildlife — and any threat to wildlife today is a threat we could well do without, especially when it comes from something as utterly pointless as a balloon release. Balloon Alert. But for marine animals, balloons may mean death, as do other forms of plastic.
Balloons are ingested by whales, dolphins, turtles, seals, fish and water-fowl, who innocently believe they are food such as jellyfish or squid. Farmer wins compensation after Red Nose Day balloon kills cow. A witness on horseback heard a popping noise and saw what looked like a flare and some confetti fall away from the plane as it rolled and nose-dived.
Sky lanterns Chinese paper lanterns not environmentally-friendly. Balloon ribbons cause problems of their own when they are picked up by birds, such as osprey, as nesting material. The ribbons in nests can get wound around the birds or nestlings, causing death by strangulation or starvation. Mass Balloon Release Kills. Current: In the event that any balloons are released pursuant to the exemption established in this paragraph, the party responsible for the release shall make available to any law enforcement officer evidence of the biodegradability or photodegradability of said balloons in the form of a certificate executed by the manufacturer.
Failure to provide said evidence shall be prima facie evidence of a violation of this act. Release of certain balloons prohibited; civil penalty. It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly release or cause to be released into the atmosphere within a one-hour period fifty or more balloons which are i made of a nonbiodegradable or nonphotodegradable material or any material which requires more than five minutes' contact with air or water to degrade and ii inflated with a substance which is lighter than air.
The provisions of this section shall not apply to i balloons released by or on behalf of any agency of the Commonwealth, or the United States or pursuant to a contract with the Commonwealth, the United States, or any other state, territory or government for scientific or meteorological purposes or ii hot air balloons that are recovered after launch.
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