Balloons Grounded to Save Sea Creatures

A school celebrates a special event or conducts a weather experiment and hundreds, if not thousands, of balloons are released. The scene is repeated at political rallies, parades and mall openings, where the balloons paint a dazzling kaleidoscope in the sky as they drift away, seemingly forever afloat.

But balloons--or pieces of popped balloon--have to land somewhere.

And sometimes they splash down in the ocean, where whales and sea turtles confuse the balloons with jellyfish and eat them, clogging their digestive tracts. The result, according to some environmentalists, is that the creatures starve to death.

Concerned about such hazards to wildlife, administrators of the Long Beach Unified School District recently adopted a policy of grounding all school balloon launches.

“We should all be concerned with the environmental issues facing our world, and this is an important lesson for our students,” said Charles Carpenter, the district’s deputy superintendent for instruction.

Long Beach Unified is the first school district in the area, and possibly the state, to ban school balloon launches, according to representatives from various school districts, the state Department of Education, the Cabrillo Marine Museum and the offices of education for Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“I don’t know of any other school district that has discontinued them,” said Betsy Olson, the environmental education grant program coordinator for the state Department of Education.

“This is the first I’ve heard,” said Greg Schuett, manager of the environmental field study program for the Orange County Office of Education. “I think it’s a good idea.”

The district’s new policy received kudos from environmentalists, who point out that balloons also litter the environment and that their strings sometimes entangle sea birds and other creatures.

But such concern is viewed as an overreaction by the balloon industry, whose representatives argue that there is no conclusive proof that latex balloons have killed any wildlife.

“They have found animals with balloons in them but they cannot prove that balloons caused their death,” explained Daniel Cerf, president of Kindel & Graham, a large San Francisco-based balloon distributor.

“To ban all balloon releases is ridiculous, totally ridiculous,” Cerf said. “What’s happening is that people are way overreacting. It drives me nuts. I just don’t understand it.”

Peter Hibbard, who along with his wife formed the Balloon Alert Project three years ago, concedes that figures on wildlife mortality from ingesting balloons are hard to come by. But there is evidence pointing to the potential danger, according to Hibbard.

In 1987, for example, Hibbard, a New Jersey biology teacher, conducted an autopsy on a 1,000-pound leatherback turtle, an endangered species, that washed up on shore. He found a latex balloon lodged in the turtle’s stomach. There was nothing in the intestines except a 3-foot-long nylon string attached to the knot of the balloon, Hibbard said. No food could pass through the digestive system, he explained.

“No, there is no proof. But there is a definite connection,” Hibbard said last week from his home in New Jersey. “It hasn’t been definitely proven that cigarettes cause cancer, either.”

Besides, Hibbard continued, the litter alone should be enough reason for people to stop sending balloons into the air.

Cerf, the balloon distributor, said most balloons are used as indoor decorations, with less than 10% released outdoors.

Using the balloon industry’s estimate of 10%, Hibbard calculates that 2,700 tons of balloons are dumped into the environment each year--enough to cover a quarter of an acre and extend 140 feet into the air, he says. “The balloon industry tells us it’s not very much. What’s very much?” Hibbard asked. “We’re not anti-balloon. We’re anti-litter.”

The two sides also argue over how long the latex balloons linger in the environment. Balloon manufacturers say the material is completely biodegradable, but environmentalists say balloons don’t break down quickly enough.

The potential hazards of balloons have received increased attention in recent years. The more common controversy involves silver-coated Mylar balloons, the metallic ones that have caused power outages in California and elsewhere when they tangled with electrical transformers. But more recently, other balloons have come under criticism from environmentalists concerned that they are killing wildlife and adding to the tons of plastic and rubber products polluting the earth.

In Florida, the state Legislature last year banned releases of more than 10 balloons at a time, unless the balloons are made of biodegradable material. Lawmakers in six other states also are considering bans on mass releases of helium-filled balloons, Hibbard said.

According to information gathered by the Balloon Alert Project, a growing number of organizations have adopted formal policies against balloon releases. They include the National Education Assn., the University of Alabama, Hershey Park, the Philadelphia School District and the National Science Teachers Assn., which canceled its annual balloon weather project two years ago.

Local school officials could not say how often or how many balloons are released into the air. A typical balloon release at a school would either commemorate a special event or involve a weather project, in which students write their names on cards attached to the strings and wait to see how far they travel.

Richard B. Caldwell, superintendent of the Paramount Unified School District, said balloon launches are not common in his district, but are used only for special occasions, such as last year’s centennial celebration at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School.

The release of colorful balloons has its benefits, some school officials say. It provides a good learning experience, said Larry Ward, a school board member for the Bellflower Unified School District. “It’s a good way for the kids to communicate with others. And it gets kids enthused,” he said.

Several environmentalists conceded that balloons, regardless of their numbers, are not the biggest threat to the environment. Nonetheless, they approve of the message the children in the Long Beach district schools will get from the new policy.

“The prevalance of plastic containers and bottles left on the beach are by far a bigger problem,” said Steve Vogel, education curator at the Cabrillo Marine Museum. “But the idea, the underlying philosophy” of the new policy will drive the message home that everyone can do his or her part.

ALTERNATIVES TO BALLOON RELEASES

Balloons are festive and fun, but according to some environmentalists, they are also dangerous to wildlife and litter the planet. The New Jersey-based Balloon Alert Project suggests a number of alternatives to releasing helium-filled balloons. The activists encourage school officials and others to:

* Tie balloons together in big arches and pull them down when finished.

* Release balloons indoors, where they will be decorative for days.

* Have a “kite day” instead of a “balloon day.”

* Include balloon sculpture contests in art classes.

* Have students plant trees or have classes adopt an endangered species

as a science project that replaces balloon weather experiments.