Sunday, May 24, 2009

Of Plastic Bags and Balloons....

There's something i've been wanting to post on for a while, and a post by NEA reminded me about it. Check out this slideshow NEA linked to on "Why Plastic Bags Should be Banned' (use the scroll on the right to scroll down). Good smattering of facts and pictures to illustrate a really good point. 

So these pictures are what I wanted to post, they are from 2000m depth in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (1000 nautical miles from anywhere). Recognise it? - 


It's a mylar balloon. Those silver type balloons sold with helium in them and pretty ribbons. The silver has washed out leaving it clear, and it's wrapped around a deep-sea coral. I really dislike these balloons. Admittedly places now tend to sell them with a weight attached so they don't fly away, but some do still escape. We often see trash in the deep ocean, but it amazed us all when we saw this. Who knows where it came from. 

If you're going to get helium balloons, please get the latex ones which are natural and will biodegrade easily (and are cheaper than the metallic ones too!). If you're going to put a ribbon on them, use biodegradeable ribbon, or tie a weight to it so they don't fly away. These balloons do end up somewhere when they fly away, they don't just disappear.....

3 comments:

Nicola said...

oh, now that is just depressing.
stian home...opened your box. GORGEOUS tea bag holder! and THANK YOU for the shirts, coffee, candies. did you make the shirts???
we miss you!
oh, and i love your happy list!

bsa said...

Save the Bay, a big organization here in the Bay Area is mounting a concerted effort to ban plastic bags for these very same reasons! Hopefully we are all now beginning to wake up a bit!

RGW said...

I did make the shirts! I'd never tye-dyed before and decided it was time to fill in that missing gap from childhood. And I wanted to do 'something' to my boring pillowcases.....:0)