Good morning my balloonie friends. This is a long post sorry, but an important one. I have been contacted by an organization called oceancrusaders.org/ who sent this lovely email to me this weekend: EMAIL SENT TO EM I have just seen your advert on the TV. Let me remind you that littering in an offence punishable by law. Balloon drops are littering as the balloons end up in our environment, killing marine life, birds and lizards. I encourage you to delete balloon drops from your program. If me or one of my team see an event that you put on launching balloons, I will report this and you face fines that will be a lot more than your profits. You have to think of the environment. As party planners, you are responsible for the environment and plastic in our oceans is killing 100,000+ marine creatures and 1 million + sea birds. Are you participating in this, well if you are organising events with balloon launches then you are. That is a crime and you can be fined for littering. Is this what you want. Be responsible and your events could be so much more effective. Imagine promoting an environmentally friendly enchanted moment instead of an event that kills turtles and birds. Please visit OceanCrusaders.org for more information. Please make a difference as it is craziness like Balloon drops that kill our marine life. MY THOUGHTS Initially I wasnt going to respond the the gentleman, however there is so much misinformation out there that I felt that I needed to respond before this misguided person went any further. I would like your thoughts on my response please? EM RESPONSE Thank you for your email, I understand that the world needs people like you and I commend you on your passion, I have checked your web site as you suggested and I believe that your heart is in the right place on the whole. However I feel that you should undertake more research before you go contacting other professional people to ensure that you don’t come across as a nut job. I confess in the beginning this is what you appeared to be as your references where all wrong even your subject line. However I was always taught to research before I respond to people and upon looking at your website, you do appear to be great at what you are passionate about. Truly this is wonderful and I applaud you for your work. In short I will continue to do what I do as I am a professional event organizer. Everything that we do is done with a lot of research and a healthy conscious that we are doing what we can to ensure that everyone is protected, even the environment. Some concerns I have with your email: • I assume what you are complaining about is balloon releases not balloon drops (you should get your references correct if you are going to portray yourself as an expert). • If you are complaining about balloon drops this is always done inside a venue and the rubbish is picked up and destroyed the same as any other litter is, correctly. • Another incorrect concern is that you inferred that balloons are plastic. They in fact are 100% natural latex which is a product produced from trees. When we do balloon releases they are with these latex balloons only. The balloons are harvested from trees in a similar manner to harvesting maple syrup. The balloons are then inflated with the correct amount of helium and hand tied; we never attach any product to the balloons that may cause difficulty to the environment. The balloons then reach an altitude that causes the balloons to expand, the gas to freeze and then explode. The balloon particles finally float to earth in very small pieces which do not harm any marine life. The particles then decay at the same rate as an oak leaf does. • Balloon releases are not illegal here in NT so I am not sure who you would report us to. Blackmailing me with this does not frighten me, however you lost credibility with me by doing so. • Keep Australia Beautiful which does an amazing job does not reference balloons as a major or minor concern. It really is plastic and other similar products that is the main problem with all the environment. • I also noticed that at no time on your website did you mention balloons as being a problem with the dead turtles that you found. This probably tells you something don’t you think. • All professional balloon people in Australia and the world, are trained to ensure that balloon releases are done without ribbon etc and in the same fashion that I mentioned in my earlier point. I personally don’t know of any Balloon Professional in Australia that does not follow that code of conduct. I invite you to check out just a couple of web sites that I found today to read up on your concerns. I hope that this goes somewhat to alleviating your worries, however there are a lot of misinformation out there in the www so please check what it is that you are reading. • theballooncouncil.org/pdf/balloon-release-study.pdf • abc.net.au/science/surfingscientist/heliumballoons.htm Once again, thank you for your concerns and I wish you all the best for the future. Keep up the great work that you are doing.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 02:30:10 +0000