Why Some California Cities are Banning Children's Balloons (msn.com) 77
The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times writes that it doesn't take a Chinese spy balloon to threaten ocean wildlife. "Even the child-size pink plastic 'Happy Birthday' balloon can be hazardous if left in the wrong hands. Or, more precisely, left from the wrong hands."
There are several recent cases of sea turtles, seals and sea lions off the California coast discovered entangled in or choked by balloon strings, or in physical distress after ingesting balloons. Among the key findings of a 2020 Oceana report on ocean plastic was that balloons were one of the most common types of plastics entangling or consumed by marine life, along with bags, recreational fishing line, sheeting and food wrappers.
The threat to sea life is one of the main reasons a handful of coastal Southern California cities have slapped restrictions on the use of balloons, ranging from prohibiting the sale or release of lighter-than-air balloons (which generally means those filled with helium) to a ban on the sale, distribution or public use of all balloons passed by Laguna Beach on Tuesday.
If this trend sounds familiar, that's because a few years back it was single-use plastic straws that were targeted by local bans. Eventually, there were so many different rules about distribution of plastic disposable straws that a statewide law, beginning in 2019, made sense. Balloons may be heading for the same fate....
California will phase out mylar balloons by 2031 because their metallic nylon foil shells have a tendency to cause blackouts and spark wildfires when they float into power lines. That's good, but now California legislators should consider placing restrictions on the use and release of latex balloons. The balloon industry markets latex rubber balloons as biodegradable, but studies have found that they don't break down in the ocean. Furthermore, the strings attached to balloons are generally plastic. This makes them single-use trash in the same way that grocery bags and straws are, and releasing them into the environment is littering.
A Laguna Beach environmentalist tells the Times people need to rethink the way they look at plastic. "When people say they throw things away — there's really no away."
The threat to sea life is one of the main reasons a handful of coastal Southern California cities have slapped restrictions on the use of balloons, ranging from prohibiting the sale or release of lighter-than-air balloons (which generally means those filled with helium) to a ban on the sale, distribution or public use of all balloons passed by Laguna Beach on Tuesday.
If this trend sounds familiar, that's because a few years back it was single-use plastic straws that were targeted by local bans. Eventually, there were so many different rules about distribution of plastic disposable straws that a statewide law, beginning in 2019, made sense. Balloons may be heading for the same fate....
California will phase out mylar balloons by 2031 because their metallic nylon foil shells have a tendency to cause blackouts and spark wildfires when they float into power lines. That's good, but now California legislators should consider placing restrictions on the use and release of latex balloons. The balloon industry markets latex rubber balloons as biodegradable, but studies have found that they don't break down in the ocean. Furthermore, the strings attached to balloons are generally plastic. This makes them single-use trash in the same way that grocery bags and straws are, and releasing them into the environment is littering.
A Laguna Beach environmentalist tells the Times people need to rethink the way they look at plastic. "When people say they throw things away — there's really no away."
Party baloons, but not masks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Party balloons, but not masks? (Score:5, Insightful)
By the same logic, we should also ban condoms. And latex gloves. But your comment wasn't about logic, it was about whatwaboutism, attacking one thing because another thing is a problem.
But the point is to avoid single-use plastics where they aren't needed in the first place. But we do have a litter problem because somehow people responsible enough to not want to spread disease still are irresponsible enough to carelessly litter their facemasks.
Re:Party balloons, but not masks? (Score:4, Insightful)
By the same logic, we should also ban condoms. And latex gloves. But your comment wasn't about logic, it was about whatwaboutism, attacking one thing because another thing is a problem.
But the point is to avoid single-use plastics where they aren't needed in the first place. But we do have a litter problem because somehow people responsible enough to not want to spread disease still are irresponsible enough to carelessly litter their facemasks.
Condoms aren't single use. Just turn them inside out and rinse the fuck out of them. And if you use a rubber every day just melt them down, make a tire, and call it a good year.
Re:Party balloons, but not masks? (Score:5, Funny)
Condoms aren't single use. Just turn them inside out and rinse the fuck out of them. And if you use a rubber every day just melt them down, make a tire, and call it a good year.
Good Sir! I will have you know this is slashdot, and users here would never think of only using a rubber once. Should one ever be used, it goes in a frame over the mantle, to enjoy for a lifetime. Not some urbane landfill. Good day to you!
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When I'm done with a condom, it usually doesn't float away in the wind.
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Hey, speak for yourself, man.
* sniffles *
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But we do have a litter problem because somehow people responsible enough to not want to spread disease still are irresponsible enough to carelessly litter their facemasks.
Some of it may be irresponsible littering by those people but other things are also causes. For example, people who do not regularly mask may be required to mask in a store or other environment, and take it off after. Also, masks fit only so so in pockets, and so can fall out easily. But regardless of cause, there is a clear problem here.
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By the same logic, we should also ban condoms. And latex gloves.
Latex gloves and condoms quickly biodegrade. Balloons are typically made of vinyl or mylar. Only some more expensive balloons are made of latex.
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How many single-use plastics go into each useless Covid test? Get rid of those stupid things. They don't even work reliably enough to justify their existence.
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Helium is something else. It should be banned except for medical and research purposes. Until we get the next generations of nuclear reactors up we have a diminishing research.
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First of all, I was happy and disappointed that the helium was distributed in larger containers than necessary. I think some genius realized that you can store helium with less metal if you use a much larger container made of much much thinner metal. Of course, PV=NRT agrees with this. Of course, if ther
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Through last year the US was required to sell helium below cost. That is why prices are low. Private sellers regularly run low on stock and ration.
Like so many crisis. This is not immediate and so not of general concern. We may see a real shortage in 20 years, or we may manage supplies so we have a balance. Limiting recreational use is how we get that balance.
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Because California Democrats just want to control people. That's the only consistency in these regulations. Masks are a tool of social control, hence they are not targeted under these rules. Protecting the wildlife is just an excuse; it's not the legislature's real concern.
Re: It's not the sea turtles (Score:3)
That's why mylar balloons are banned. Latex balloons are getting banned for the aforementioned environmental reasons.
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That's why mylar balloons are banned
Aww, can we at least use Mylar ribbons to hold them? Pretty soon it’s not going to be anywhere near as much fun releasing them near major electrical transmission lines.
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Fun fact (Score:3, Interesting)
It is distinctly possible we're going to find ourselves in a ringworld style scenario where one of the things needed for a modern civilization is just pissed away in the party balloons.
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Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, and a product of nuclear fusion, :-)
so in 20 years there should be plenty of helium on earth
Re:Fun fact (Score:4, Informative)
Right idea, wrong book. The one you're thinking of is The Mote in God's Eye, [wikipedia.org] by Niven and Pournelle.
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Question (Score:2)
I grok that the vast majority of helium today is still vented off to space as it comes out of the ground. That's a problem, but not what I'm asking about.
Ignoring that, is it possible to "make" more helium? i.e. Is it feasible to specifically design alpha-decay reactors for helium generation and capture?
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Yes. Just build a working fusion reactor, that's the way the sun makes helium out of hydrogen.
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Don't forget the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloons and their helium consumption and waste.
Plastic is bad, mmkay (Score:2, Interesting)
Which makes me wonder when they will be banning things such as vehicles in California. The amount of plastic in a vehicle these days is incredible. Leather? Nope, synthetic, plastic based. Trims? Plastic based. Interior? Mostly plastic.
Re: Plastic is bad, mmkay (Score:2)
Thank you for your kind and well polite words. While I understand one use plastics are a problem, and I just highlighted the very far extreme of this, going after each and every excuse for banning items off mankind do open a way for other ridiculous laws to be shoved on the people. Why not ban single use syringes next? It fits both, plastic and single use. It should just not happen solely because one must know how to properly dispose it instead of accidentally letting it fly away. Would not be, then, a bett
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Is this a real question?
Why not ban single use syringes next
1. There is a practical reason for them to be single use (needles must be sterile)
2. Syringes do have some consumer use and applications but majority of use is via professionals and thusly...
3. Outside of illicit use needles are probably disposed of properly 99.9% of the time. Every pharmacy and doctors office has a system, most bathrooms have a sharps disposal box as well as anyone who is assigned injections is given one.
Something being single use and plastic sufficient but not nec
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Right because banning balloons, completely non essential items that piss away limited helium, is the same as banning cars, a modern necessity at least in most parts of the US.
I suspect you're thinking more with your ideology than with your brain here.
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Yes, if you make up your own criteria you can exclude any country you want from its "developed country" status. Congratulations on figuring that out.
Meanwhile in reality mass transit is hardly the make or break metric for developed status. The funny thing about your post is that you're probably ignorant enough to where you dont even realize you're also calling Canada an undeveloped country.
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I do. And I am. Cities are built to be centralized spaces so we can all leverage an economy of scale. And it's really hard to do that if everything you need is more than you can walk, bike or take transit to within about a half hour timeframe for the trip itself. It shouldn't be necessary to bring out your own heavy machinery to just get shit done day to day. I get it, this model works for the 99% of the space that is rural on this continent and that's fine. But it's god damn intolerable most people c
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Should American cities be more walkable? Absolutely. Was your prior post just stupid anti Americanism? Sure was!
Just because you dont like something about a country doesnt make it undeveloped. I might as well claim many countries in Europe are undeveloped because of their often terrible shop hours. What the hell is the point of opening a shop during common business hours when most people are at work only to close it around 6 in the evening right when all the office workers are getting off? Only banks do tha
Re: Plastic is bad, mmkay (Score:2)
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Look, buddy, what I was saying wasn't antiamerican.
What exactly would you call calling what is overwhelmingly considered to be a developed country not developed because you want it to have more mass transit? Personally, I'd call that slander and last I checked slander is not something people typically react well to.
Likewise, if there is a patriotic bone in your body (which I doubt based on your response), then you should be able to plainly recognize a call for improvement. You probably think FDR was the worst thing to happen to America, don't you?
Where I come from legitimate calls for improvement dont begin with slander. Perhaps consider your approach. Imagine if someone began a discussion on the country you live in with "Well you're not really a civilized country but...".
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You replied to me and keep doing so first by making the obvious troll comment that the US is not a developed country. You then spent several posts trying to deflect over to American mass transit which was very clearly not what I was bothered by. Then you decided to just start making shit up about me but yeah, I'm "sealioning" you.
It's pretty pathetic the lengths some people will take to save face. I look forward to more as you dont seem capable of introspection and I dont mind telling trolls how worthless t
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Also, I'm a leftist shit for brains and FDR is one of our finest. That doesnt mean I should be happy about slander in regards to my own country.
Saying the US needs more mass transit = perfectly fine observation to have.
Saying the US is not a developed country = slander.
Kamifusen (Score:2)
Cars don't generally end up littering the oceans. Decorative plastics in cars help reducing weight. This plastic has a purpose and it pays back in reduced fuel expense. Also what is the alternative for cars? Natural leather tanning is a known polluting industry. Wood could be used instead of solid plastics, but has many drawbacks: has to be manufactured by expensive CNC (can be powdered and pressed but then uses glue -- plastic); when made of tropical woods, promotes deforestation; and require artificial po
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Cars don't generally end up littering the ocean, but their tyres do.
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their tyres do.
We can be hopeful that airless tyres (due to enter consumer market in 2024), which are marketed as more durable, will contribute to reduce the number of tyres that are changed, and therefore the number of tyres that end up in nature.
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Which makes me wonder when they will be banning things such as vehicles in California. The amount of plastic in a vehicle these days is incredible. Leather? Nope, synthetic, plastic based. Trims? Plastic based. Interior? Mostly plastic.
Which becomes a serious problem when your car floats away and lands in the middle of the ocean.
I am protesting the song "99 luftballons" (Score:4, Funny)
Not only did the 99 balloons themselves eventually create waste hazardous to wildlife, but the scrambling of 99 jet fighters in response to those balloons wasted thousands of gallons of fuel and added massive amounts of CO2 and other pollutants to the atmosphere.
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Also Nena simply isn't a good singer.
Pissing into the ocean (Score:1)
This is such a waste of time, talk about doing nothing but attention seeking. Want to make a REAL difference. How about legislation banning non biodegradable restaurant packaging? Thatâ(TM)s 40-80 MILLION TONS of waste a year. Compared to all of the balloons sold 1365 tons of waste. Thatâ(TM)s 0.003%. 1 chick fil a probably creates more styrofoam waste in a year than all the balloons sold in the entire us.
https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-... [epa.gov]
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/r... [pewtrusts.org]
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The deluxe sandwiches (the ones with lettuce, tomato) come in a black styrofoam flip container, at least recently they still were.
Also styrofoam gets something of a bad rap overall, I read some things that's it's actually preferable to say the clear polypropylene used for the salads and such. Could be wrong though.
Re:Pissing into the ocean (Score:5, Informative)
I grew up in a family that ran a Chinese take out restaurant. We did a roaring trade and packaged everything but soup in completely biodegradable folding paper boxes called "oyster pails". There were never any complaints about them, they worked fine.
Fifty years later the oyster pail is nearly extinct, replaced by black plastic trays that are neither biodegradable, nor recyclable (because of pigments, not resins). A half dozen plastic trays coming with your order doesn't seem like a big deal, but if you look at the *aggregate* numbers, from all the Americans ordering takeout over the course of a year, they're just staggering. And you have to compound that by the fact that these things will last for decades in landfills, finally breaking down to microplastics.
Plastic takeout aren't even any *cheaper* than paper oyster pails.
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I wash and reuse the sturdy plastic takeout containers for food storage. They work great. I don't understand why people just throw them away.
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Banning straws and balloons in CA and progressive cities seems frivolous.
No, it's not frivolous. It is cost-saving. The city governments are willing to ban anything, even if it devastates little children, rather than paying for a second garbage person to ride on the backs of their garbage trucks to pick up all the garbage that they leave behind.
All these bans are faux environmentalism, as a way of city governments shirking their responsibility to the environment by trying to make it somebody else's problem. When elected officials suggest things like this, ask them whether the
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When elected officials suggest things like this, ask them whether their garbage trucks have two people. If they say no, ask them why.
First, many cities contract out garbage services. Second, have you actually seen a modern garbage truck? They have a big robotic arm that grabs and empties the bins without the driver having to get out of the truck at all in most cases. Nothing is "left behind" if garbage is properly bagged. Even with a single person per garbage truck, my neighborhood manages to remain relatively spotless.
I understand that's not your primary point, but it's such a ridiculous terrible example, it's hard to help myself.
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When elected officials suggest things like this, ask them whether their garbage trucks have two people. If they say no, ask them why.
First, many cities contract out garbage services.
And of course, they do this because then they can pretend that it is somebody else's problem, and when people complain about the garbage left behind when they compact it, they can say, "Oh, but it's the contractor," and when they end up throwing away the recycling because of contamination, they can blame the contractor, and.... :-/
Second, have you actually seen a modern garbage truck? They have a big robotic arm that grabs and empties the bins without the driver having to get out of the truck at all in most cases. Nothing is "left behind" if garbage is properly bagged. Even with a single person per garbage truck, my neighborhood manages to remain relatively spotless.
Sadly, the "if garbage is properly bagged" is why I randomly see bits of trash in my neighborhood on garbage day. And there's no street sweeping (more budget cuts), so all that s
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ask them whether their garbage trucks have two people. If they say no, ask them why.
I asked the Garbage man about his truck when they moved to single driver here (And, for clarity, here they have a second set of driving controls on the 'passenger' side that are operated standing up so the truck can be driven short distances and got in and out of without walking round the truck) He said they were great - as they had massively reduced the number of small accidents where the driver is not aware of what the other garbage man is doing and drives or operates the machanery when the other person
Clutching pearls (Score:1, Troll)
I hike in the southern California deserts. (Score:4, Interesting)
In 2 months I pulled over 2 dozen dead balloons off of bushes. There was nowhere I hiked that I didn't find some.
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At least they were already dead. It's rather distressing when you find one that's still partially alive and trapped. Do you attempt to free it and risk injury, or try to humanely put it out its misery, after which you then still have to dispose of the corpse.
Bad jokes aside, thanks for cleaning up for the benefit of future hikers. I'm kind of past my hiking days, but spent many happy weeks hiking in the PNW Cascade ranges. We always made a rule of leaving a campsite or trail cleaner than we found it, an
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Now yer talkin.
In California the winds come off the ocean at least 300 days a year. Any stray airborne balloons in those politically correct coastal cities will head toward the desert.
Still dangerous, however. They can frighten the roadrunners and scorpions and be downright hazardous to hungry coyotes.
Easier to first ban helium use in balloons. (Score:1)
Don't waste a rare gas to cause crying child pointing to the sky looking at their lost balloon no more.
Don't worry my child.
It's lost, first it will go very high up, it will get far away until it will pop into the mouth of a turtle.
Filling balloons with help from your lungs can be a good little practise.
We need to stop people getting shot (Score:1, Troll)
It's gotta stop.
Annoying Ecofascism (Score:2)
Edible Balloons (Score:2)
That's not the real reason (Score:2)
Clowns too (Score:1)
Ban clowns too. Just because.
shortages (Score:2)
California is already running out of things to ban.