Southern California Edison says that last year over eleven-hundred power outages were caused by metallic balloons – with as many as 6 per day during graduation season where the buying and subsequent releasing of these balloons spike.
Metallic – or Mylar – balloons can get tangled in overhead wires and cause fires, transformer explosions, downed lines and of course – power outages. SCE says that these costly disruptions are entirely preventable by keeping balloons tied to weights and kept indoors. Releasing balloons away from power lines doesn’t get you in the clear – however – as these balloons can fall back to earth in remote areas, where they can be mistaken for food to local wildlife. Latex and metallic balloons don’t decompose and will stay in the environment for hundreds of years.
Puncturing helium-filled balloons before trashing them can help them not become litter elsewhere – but the simplest way to keep these balloons out of power lines and the natural environment is to simply not purchase them.
For z107.7 News – this is Assignment Reporter Robert Haydon.
Links
Southern California Edison – Metallic Balloon Hazards Graduate Too – From Bad to Worse
Z107.7 – A Look at the Danger of Mylar Balloons by Heather Clisby
