FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Looking forward to setting a cluster of balloons aloft at your next gender reveal, birthday party or wedding?
If House Bill 91 passes, that will be against the law.
The reasoning behind the bill: As enchanting as balloons floating off into the distance might be, once they drift away they become litter that can be deadly to an array of animals, from sea turtles to birds to cattle.
Florida law currently allows people to release up to 10 balloons per day, and has an exemption for biodegradable latex balloons. Those balloons can land miles out in the ocean, 20 miles deep into the Everglades, or even on cattle ranches, where they end up in hay bails.
The bill, proposed by state Rep. Linda Chaney, R-Tampa-St. Petersburg, specifically bans the intentional outdoor release of any balloon, biodegradable or not, filled with gas that is lighter than air. So helium balloons at a shindig would still be legal, you just have to dispose of them properly.
“We’re always looking for a way to keep our beaches clean and our residents and tourists happy,” said Chaney, whose district includes the beaches of Pinellas County. “And we want to protect the wildlife. There’s also a business component to this. I was surprised that the Cattlemen’s Association was one of the first groups to step up to support this bill.”
Cows and goats eat the balloons, she said, and experience health issues. She said one of her fellow house members had a pregnant cow that ate a balloon and the cow and unborn calf died.
Metallic-looking Mylar balloons do not decompose, and latex balloons take one to three years to decompose, according to the Sea Turtle Preservation Society website.
Hollywood’s Catherine Udine, the South Florida representative for conservation nonprofit Oceana, said she frequently finds balloons while paddle-boarding with manatees and dolphins off Hollywood Beach.
The group, along with other nonprofits, helped initiate the bill. She said it was crucial to remove the “biodegradable” exemption from current state law, since most balloons have string or ribbons attached, during the time it takes them to break down, they pose a hazard to animals.
“There are sea turtles being found, even with these latex balloons that are supposedly biodegradable. And the latex balloons look a lot like jellyfish (a prey item for sea turtles). Ocean debris also ends up smelling like jellyfish because it collects algae and bacteria,” she said.
Shelby Hoover, sea turtle rehabilitation coordinator assistant at Boca Raton’s Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, said “we see a lot of turtles come in with small pieces of plastic, or we’ll find it in their gastrointestinal tract during a necropsy, some of which we assume is balloon due to the latex texture.”
She said that ingesting balloons can lead to impaction of a turtle’s digestive system, which can make them lethargic and unable to feed — a deadly handicap in the ocean, where they fall prey to sharks and other large fish.
David Anderson, Gumbo Limbo’s sea turtle conservation coordinator, spends a great deal of time on Palm Beach County’s beaches doing sea turtle nest surveys. He said he sees spikes in balloons washing up on the beach after holidays, particularly Valentines Day and Mother’s Day.
Jupiter’s Marissa Williams runs a nonprofit, Salt Collins Lures, that collects stray fishing line and lures from mangrove shorelines. She then sells the refurbished lures to raise funds for environmental causes. “You see them everywhere,” she said of balloons. “The string will get wrapped around a mangrove. You have to wrestle with it. I’ve found a bird skeleton and balloon string attached to a mangrove,” she said.
She finds and collects the balloons oceanside as well. “You’ll see a good amount of balloons on the beach with washed-up sargassum,” she said. She even spots the party favors miles out at sea, while fishing along weed lines that attract a whole food chain of marine life, including turtles. “If you see trash out there, it’s most likely a balloon,” she said.
She also understands how a turtle could confuse trash and treasure. She was recently picking up floating plastic in Jupiter Inlet and almost grabbed a jellyfish. “It does make you pause — if I thought that that jellyfish was a piece of plastic, it makes you feel like a turtle is easily going to go, ‘oh, that’s a piece of jellyfish, I’m going to eat it.’”
As for enforcement, Chaney said that the bill moves balloons into “litter status,” which will empower local municipalities to deal with an intentionally released balloon the same way they deal with litter. “Local law enforcement will have the discretion to give someone a warning or a ticket, just like they would litter,” she said.
The bill is currently only in the House, and needs a parallel bill in the state Senate. “We’re having conversations with senators who represent beach communities and senators who represent agriculture areas,” said Chaney.
What does Chaney say to those who relish the sight of a gaggle of balloons floating off into the sunset? “Find something else, instead of releasing balloons. There are other ways to celebrate.”
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