What Goes Up Must Come Down

If you are reading this I would suspect that you are the sort of law-abiding citizen that would not deliberately litter.  You know - throw something out of the window of your automobile, leave trash in the park or scatter garbage in your yard.

Nevertheless, people think nothing of releasing balloons into the sky to celebrate a birth, a death, a wedding anniversary, a gender reveal or some other event.

Moreover, most of these balloons are made of colorful and reflective Mylar.  In case you didn't know - Mylar is the brand name for a special type of stretched polyester film. Melinex and Hostaphan are two other well-known trade names for this plastic, which is more generally known as BoPET or biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate.

 

A balloon made of this material can stay aloft for up to three weeks.  Yet it will return to earth.  Eventually.  And unlike a latex balloon which degrades in about the same amount of time that an oak leaf will compost BoPET takes years to biodegrade.  Not only is it unsightly trash it can harm marine life and terrestrial critters too.

So, if you are balloon release enthusiast please stick to old-school latex balloons and save me the trouble of picking-up your trash in my woods.  This makes me grumpy....