The Problem with Balloons
The problem with balloons is that what goes up must come down, and when they do, they are a very real danger to wildlife and damage to the environment. This has a lot to do with why Southern Shores resident Debbie Swick has become a one-woman army fighting to make people aware of how dangerous they are.
And she’s been pretty successful.
She’s created her own organization—Ban the Balloon Release NC—to get the word out, and although it’s pretty much just Swick, she has gotten every beach town south of Corolla and the areas of Dare County that are not part of incorporated town to ban releasing balloons. That’s more than 80 miles of beach.
She’s managed to accomplish all of that since April, when the Town of Duck started the bans with a unanimous Town council vote to prohibit balloon releases within the town’s borders.
“Hopefully,” Carolina Designs Managing Partner Monica Thibodeau said at the meeting. “They (the bans) will catch on, that there are other…more environmentally friendly ways to call attention to whatever you’re celebrating.” Thibodeau was speaking at that time as the Mayor Pro Tem of Duck.
As a number of law enforcement officials have pointed out, a balloon on the ground is litter. A balloon floating free is not, and unless there is an ordinance or law forbidding their release, there isn’t much they can do.
For all their beauty in flight, what happens when a balloon comes to earth— often falling into the sea—can be ugly.
To some species of whales, a balloon in the water looks a lot like their favorite food, and they will eat it. However, once the balloon is in their digestive tract, it cannot be digested.
There was a particularly horrific example of what can happen on Emerald Isle just south of the Outer Banks last year.
The Gervais Beaked Whale is a deep-diving whale that typically inhabits subtropical waters and the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. In November 2023, a juvenile Gervais whale washed up on the beach. An autopsy revealed that a balloon was blocking food from reaching its stomach, and it starved to death.
An expert on deep diving whales, Keith Rittmaster, Natural Sciences Curator at the North Carolina Maritime Museum, noted that it was “a nursing calf that had no food in the stomach…” suggesting to him, “I can’t imagine it was anything but this was the first bite that this whale took.”( Resident’s fight leads to balloon bans on 80 miles of beach, Coastal Review)
The fact that a balloon was ingested in the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean underscores Swick’s concern about balloons. In her presentations to government officials, she points out that once released, balloons have been known to drift up to 1300 miles before falling to earth.
When discussing the dangers of balloons, Swick focuses on more than mylar and latex balloons. Mylar is well documented as a material that is not biodegradable. Once it’s in the environment, it’s pretty much there forever.
Latex balloons are often marketed as biodegradable, but Swick points out that they take five to six years to break down in the environment, and until they do, they pose a very real threat to wildlife.
It is not, though, just the balloons.
The string used to hold them is plastic and degrades very slowly, if at all, over time. Reports of marine life tangled in balloon strings are numerous. Even the paint used for the balloons has been shown to be harmful. A plastic-based compound, the paint breaks down into microplastics, which have become a concern in the scientific community, although there is not yet consensus on how damaging they may be.
Banning the release of balloons is not unique to the Outer Banks. To date, ten states have bans in place. In North Carolina, the beach towns of Wrightsville Beach, Topsail Beach, North Topsail Beach, and Surf City also ban balloon releases.
In Dare County, Manteo is the only town that has not yet banned the release of balloons, but Swick has mentioned to journalists that she has the town in her sights.