FUCK BALLOONS
I hate balloons and I think they should be banned. Sound grinchy? Good. Everything is wrong with balloons. They're problematic in every way an item could be. Every component is wasteful. Latex, helium, mylar. Don’t get me started on the polypropylene string. Helium is finite, and we need it to run MRI machines. No alternative has been found in the medical world to achieve MRI without helium.
It's estimated that the Earth's helium supply will be enough for another 300 years (conservatively), so maybe we’ll find a totally new method for MRI (we’ll see). Improvements in hardware, software, and helium capturing have been recently implemented and are actively being researched, but the need for MRI has increased based on general global health trends…progress, but a major indicator of the status of industries in which there are no viable alternatives for helium and their concerns for the future. Rising helium prices as supply decreases will trickle down to the consumers of all affected industries, in addition to supporting the research dollars being hurriedly poured in to protect the longevity of their businesses. Aren’t medical costs- in the U.S. especially- high enough already? I love a helium voice as much as the next person, but not at the cost of life saving MRI scans.
The industrial demand for helium is forecasted to nearly double by 2035. Briefly, let’s dive into the the shallow end on helium and its uses outside of what I’ve chosen to highlight: electric vehicles, batteries, fiber optics, AI, telecommunications, aerospace engineering, scientific research (particle physics, medicine, etc.), chemicals, pharmaceutical, rockets, semiconductor manufacturing, and more. Helium’s limited production diversification and those production centers' vulnerability to geopolitical shifts is a recipe for global disruptions across all of the aforementioned industries (and more). I do recommend diving into the deep end on your own- the larger issues hinging on helium being available for the future will shock you.
The latex is another issue, requiring rubber from trees to be tapped. Since we’ve already stripped plenty from the Amazon (thanks to the natives that were enslaved and mutilated for harvesting it) during the tire rush, the industry has moved on to southeast Asia. There it is now driving rampant deforestation and providing more poor working conditions. A special mention for the lavish water needs of rubber trees- contributing to another global shortage that will only get worse as time goes on. Balloons are not the only thing we need rubber for- killing balloons would not save the world from rubber-based deforestation or drought. It would, however, alleviate that extra tiny bit of pressure from the rubber production industry which is also reliant on a finite (technically renewable, but not at the current rate of harvest) resource that is a chief destroyer of ecosystems. We need tires and condoms way more than we need latex balloons to accent the shiny numbers we’re using to announce birthdays in photos on the gram.
Let’s take a walk down Mylar lane, since we’ve made our way to the shiny balloon category. Developed in the 1950s, it's a polyester film owned by the DuPont company (currently headed by Lisa Koch- if you know you know). Mylar has some truly invaluable applications, but this isn’t about those. This is about balloons. What matters here and now is that Mylar is often filled with helium and carelessly released, chronically floating into powerlines- and since Mylar’s metallic coating is a conductor, this cocktail results in thousands of power outages and fires a year. The number of Mylar-balloon-based power outages has increased year over year to track the growth of the balloon industry. Not only are we buying more, we’re not getting any better at it: it's self-indulgence collaborating with ignorance to produce ***waste***.
The waste aspect of this is wild. Almost unbelievable. I understand that it can be hard to wrap our human heads around the scale of major industrial waste- most of us will never see the scale in person. It's generally unfathomable. Balloons are everywhere committing atrocities, most of which happen after its helium has been lost. The string wraps around everything it can grab with its shiny tendrils. Deflated balloons look like food in the ocean to a ton of species who either choke to death or ingest so many of them that they die of starvation. Every part of the balloon spends the downtime between those more targeted attacks leeching microplastics into soil and water supplies. Even if they’re deflated and put in the trash (instructions for “responsible” balloon disposal), we all know where that trash really goes. None of it will ever decompose. The earth will suffocate under a layer of balloon carcasses by 3050, burying the tech waste all of your photos of you with balloons will be lost on when you die.
The balloon industry is expected to continue on its upward growth trend, predicted to double in value by 2033. We’re buying an absurd amount of balloons, and no one is even considering slowing down. It's just one of these things that we’ve all always had and no one bothers to reassess. One of those things we’ve used willy-nilly for silly things that have all had exclusively negative impacts: see Balloon Fest, 1986[01] if you haven’t already. If you’ve seen it before, take this time to share it with a balloon loving friend.
