The Balloon Council

About 30 years ago a whale died in NJ. Cause of death, a balloon. This put the balloon industry in panic mode as kids began to ask for laws against balloon releases to protect their animal friends, the balloon industry banned together forming The Balloon Council. The first thing they did was to put out a bogus ‘study’ in an effort to lull consumers into believing their lie. Decades later, this non-peer reviewed paper is cited to justify tossing latex trash into the environment & to sway legislature into allowing the deliberate littering. The balloons were manipulated & put in a drying oven.

The balloon & sky lantern industries are the only industries that encourage people to litter with their product. Since their formation in 1990, The Balloon Council has spent millions to defeat bills. They always try to ‘educate’ the lawmakers into allowing at least some balloons to be released – but it only takes one balloon to kill. Balloons are constantly being found during necropsies – why would the balloon industry want to risk this? Instead of fighting laws to reduce this litter, they could show they were an evolving industry & no longer stand for trashing the planet.

We’ve been cleaning the beaches of southeast Florida for over 25 years. The change in the amount & type of pollution washing ashore is devastating & depressing. Of course, there is more single-use plastic marine pollution washing in than ever before, but when we started finding all these balloons we started wondering why. We took to the internet & found the Balloon Council & other balloon sellers encouraging others to litter with their product & deceive consumers with their false claims of harmlessly biodegradable latex balloons. We knew that was not true so we started BalloonsBlow.org to spread the truth! 

Below is a letter received in June 2015. It just says “be careful” and it’s postmarked Trenton, NJ – the location of The Balloon Council headquarters… Coincidence? We don’t think so… They are obviously nervous that people are becoming aware of the deadly litter their balloons become & don’t want their customers and the public to be educated of the truth.