Posts

Showing posts from March, 2019

Your birthday balloons might just lead to death-days for marine turtles

Image
Beautiful but deadly  (Pixabay, 2019) Aren't balloon releases wonderful? Hundreds of balloons all being freed into the sky at once, a beautiful symbol for celebration or ceremonies. However, what goes up, must come down, and millions of marine life are paying the price for that short-lived insta-worthy moment.  Deflated balloon  littering (P. J. Jones) When balloons are released, they get scattered everywhere, from seeing them randomly plastered on buildings to floating in the middle of the vast seas. Many of times, organisers of such events do not cater for cleanups, resulting in deflated balloons waiting out their time to decompose. This leads to grave consequences as they clog up our ecosystems and cause harm to marine life, especially for turtles! "Now which will you choose; the blue pill or the red pill?" (R. Mark, 2018) Did you know? 78% of rubber products found inside sea turtles were balloon fragments.  When balloons deflate and get swept