Threats to the environment are not treated lightly on this page, but we cannot help but wonder if the danger to the environment posed by balloons has not been over-inflated by the Swampscott Conservancy.
A local organization committed to preserving the town’s natural assets, the Conservancy proposed a ban on balloon releases on town property. The Conservation Commission responded in the affirmative, voting to implement a balloon-release ban on town conservation land, including Linscott Park, through September when the topic will be taken up again for review.
Are balloons — those colorful sources of birthday, anniversary and graduation joy — really an environmental threat? Yes, said Conservancy President Toni Bandrowicz, who warned that the rubber floatables deflate after being released and end up ingested by animals, blocking their digestive tracts and causing them to starve.
That grim threat posed by an object of celebratory levity prompted Bandrowicz to declare that the “…town should promote the use of non-disposable, reusable decorations.” She pointed to balloon bans on Cape Cod and in Rhode Island to buttress her assertion.
Event decor company owner Carolina Velasquez said there is an alternative to banning balloons. She launched a balloon weight recycling program with the goal of distributing as many weights to people as possible as well as “promoting safe use and disposal” of balloons.
Minimizing, if not eliminating, the threat balloons and other inflatables pose to the environment is a lofty goal. Enforcing balloon use on public or private property sounds like a difficult task and one best relegated to public-education campaigns akin to those currently aimed at the threat plastic bags pose to marine animals.
We urge the Conservation Commission to focus on public education and defer from attaching penalties to balloon use in the hopes that people will adopt Velasquez’s suggestion or find other ways to lessen inflatable threats to the environment.
