Balloon Releases: Environmental Fact or Fiction?
Erroneous reports about balloons and balloon releases harming the environment have appeared in major newspapers and on national TV news programs. Many of these reports contain inaccurate claims made by well-intentioned people who care deeply about the earth’s ecology — but lack the facts.
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Latex balloons are sometimes confused with plastic items and lumped in with the plastics litter problem. The oft-used phrase, “latex balloons and other plastics” is improper. Latex is not a plastic. It’s organic, made from the sap of rubber trees collected through an absolutely harmless tapping process very simple to that used for collecting the maple sap used for making syrup.
Moreover, latex balloons are totally biodegradable — the only type of balloon used in a professionally-produced mass release. A latex balloon’s molecular structure begins breaking down with inflation and gathers momentum when exposed to sunlight and the atmosphere. Within three hours, most latex balloons released into the atmosphere rise to approximately five miles, begin to oxidize, freeze and shatter into spaghetti-like pieces. Once on the ground gases and microorganisms attack the latex, continuing the natural decomposition process — even in the dark.
