Isaac Newton, the discoverer of gravity, never saw a helium-filled metallic balloon, but he knew that what goes up must come down. We see the shiny, colorful balloons at birthdays and other celebrations. And delightful as it is to see them float up and away, reporter Mike Lipsitz brings us this story on the havoc they can wreak when they come back down…
The increasingly popular helium-filled metallic balloons can come down many hundreds of miles from the point of release. When they come down over the ocean they’re often mistaken for food by sea turtles, dolphins, and whales and can lead to a miserable death. When the balloons come down over land they become litter at best and at worst, the metallic coating which conducts electricity can become entangled in power lines creating short-circuits, outages and downed lines. More than a thousand such outages occurred every year since 2017 according to Southern California Edison; and the company says this year looks to be record-breaking. State law requires that metallic balloons be tied to a weight to prevent their release. Two California cities, Glendale and Hermosa Beach, recently banned the sale of such balloons all together.
