Mylar Balloons are a bigger problem than you might think

It’s time for a celebration, but before you go running to the store to buy mylar balloons for your party, pause for just a second to reconsider your choice. 

Mylar balloons are made of synthetic nylon that is covered in a metallic coat, which is fantastic if you are looking for a balloon to be around for the next 200+ years. 

In addition to taking a long time to degrade, the damage they can cause during their lifespan includes some serious problems like power outages, fires, and serious injury (and even death) to wildlife. 

Due to the metallic coating the balloons have, they make excellent conductors, which means if they escape or are released (even though they shouldn’t be as it's illegal in several states), they can cause extensive damage.  

“According to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, there are 100–150 power outages each year due to metallic balloons. These power outages affect thousands of customers statewide and are costly to repair.”

A study from 2007 estimated that the annual power outages cost businesses approximately $120 million each year and it's likely that number has even doubled as costs have increased. Those numbers are just from southern California, they don’t include outages and the associated costs from other places. 

Mylar balloons have been responsible for starting fires as well, two notable fires in California come to mind. Once in 2013 when numerous mylar balloons were released, they drifted into transmission power lines and started the Deer Fired that ended up lasting several days and burned over 11,000 acres! Two years later when a mylar balloon hit a powerline, it started a fire that burned 75 acres in Butte County. I don’t know about you, but as dry as the land has been for the past few years, having to worry about balloons from my party starting fires is not something I want to add to the list of things I’m concerned about. 

Thanks to the material they are made of, mylar balloons stay inflated for much longer than their latex counterparts. As a result they can stay floating around for much longer, giving them a larger traveling distance. When they fall to earth over land they can be confused as food by many terrestrial species. Their ribbons, if still attached, can cause entanglement issues in both plants and animals that may even lead to death. 

If the mylar balloons happen to fall to earth over the sea, they get a much deeper range as they sink to the bottom of the ocean…that is, if they aren’t consumed by wildlife first. As they age, the metallic coating can degrade, leaving behind a shell of the colorful celebratory token it once was. In this state they can easily be confused as jellyfish and be eaten by animals like fish and sea turtles. 

The bottom line is that most of these balloons end up discarded as litter. There hasn’t been a time we’ve been out on the water and not collected at least one of these balloon carcasses floating on the waves, and that’s not something we ever enjoy seeing on the water. 

Now we’re not trying to stop you from celebrating your special occasion, but merely asking you to think a little bit harder about what it is that you are about to purchase and what happens to it after you’re done with it.