After successfully bullying the Biden administration into banning vast swaths of gas stoves and gas-powered automobiles, environmental activists have found a new product to regulate out of existence: balloons.
Not hot air balloons or balloon bouncy castles or even Chinese spy balloons. Environmentalists around the country are cajoling city councils into banning the release, sale, and public use of mere party balloons.
What goes up must come down, meaning that, theoretically, helium-filled balloons released into the ether run the risk of imperiling critters at sea if they pop over waterways. But even Oceana, one of the environmental organizations pushing balloon bans, admitted in a study that of 839 cases nationwide of sea animals that ingested or were entangled in plastics, balloons were the offending product just 9% of the time. Recreational fishing lines were responsible for nearly seven times as many incidents, yet environmentalists haven’t begun trying to ban fishing en masse (yet).
A 2019 study by the Ocean Conservancy paints an even starker picture of just how inconsequential balloon litter truly is. The nonprofit group’s annual International Coastal Cleanup reported a total of 97 million items of litter collected by its partners worldwide. Balloons comprised barely 100,000 items — or one-tenth of 1% of the litter.
Some of the balloon legislation pushed by environmentalists bans the release of balloons into the atmosphere. For example, Delaware now punishes the release of four or fewer balloons with a fine of at least $25. But release even one more, and the penalty goes up to $250 in fines and up to eight hours of community service.
However, California is leading the crusade to up the ante. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed legislation to phase out foil balloons, and localities such as Del Mar, California, have banned the sale of balloons, while Laguna Beach, California, has banned the mere use of all kinds of balloons outright.
The activists pushing these bans are slowly but surely penetrating otherwise red localities. A Republican state representative in Florida is sponsoring a bill that would outlaw the release of a single balloon with a $150 fine.
Of course, these laws don’t just crack down on a fun way to celebrate a graduation or birthday. Balloon sale bans, in particular, run a real risk of economic ruin for the party supply industry. Marla Borokoff, the owner of the Irvine-based Baloonzilla, penned an op-ed warning the California town of the economic ramifications of the balloon sale ban it is now weighing.
“In addition to killing a small business and leaving our employees jobless, Irvine’s ban on plastics would have a ripple effect on the local economy,” Borokoff wrote of her business, which employs more than 25 people and generates more than $1 million revenue each year. “Our closure would impact our helium vendor, balloon supplier, mechanic, landlord, and many others in our network. The interconnectedness of local businesses is a delicate balance, and disrupting one element can have cascading effects.”
Worldwide, the party balloon industry is valued at over a billion dollars, and in the United States alone, wholesale suppliers sell up to 3 billion each year. At risk are not just the immediate sales of balloons but also the employment of balloon artists and party suppliers and lost tax revenue. None of this is to mention the fact that cigarette butts and bottle caps, which are literally hundreds of times more prevalent in ocean litter than balloons, per the ICC study, remain perfectly legal nationwide.
Environmentalists didn’t start with something as innocuous as a balloon, and they won’t end with them either. The Surfrider Foundation, which has been instrumental in pushing these blasted balloon bans, wants next to ban all new offshore oil drilling and to declare an emergency at the southern border, not because of the record number of illegal immigrants flooding our border but because of the “public health and environmental justice crisis.” (Surely the solution is to open our porous border altogether.)
Plastic straws and party balloons are only the start. Fail to push back on such authoritarian overreach, and gas and oil are next, lest anyone be allowed to prosper in peace.