Subject: Helium balloons - are they all they are blown up to be?
I am trustee of a faith-based charity which, as part of a weekend festival, is thinking about releasing helium-filled balloons onto which children have written their prayers . It is a lovely concept but I am struggling with whether nowadays this is really environmentally friendly and would welcome views of other message board users. Has anyone else had discussions in their charity around whether or not to release helium balloons as part of a campaigning, fundraising other event?
How about paper lanterns? As they are made from paper, they rise to the air from a candle (or similar inside them) and eventually burn out. Very beautiful and fairly widely available.
Thanks for the quick reply - and lovely idea - but not sure paper lanterns work so well during the day. And have visions of them setting fire to things. However the link was really interesting - lots of ideas - biodegradeable helium filled dove balloons - what will they think of next!
Many thanks Denise
We posted your question on Twitter and got the following response from wobable: "World helium shortage and litter mean balloon release is a no-no. Try releasing balloons without knots: http://bit.ly/cS4YCr"
About 2 weeks after that was posted, the Walk to School campaign rotted all their links by relaunching their website. The relevant page (after much digging on bit.ly, then the wayback internet machine) can be found here:
(it can take a while to load)
WHY OH WHY Don't charities retain working links after a rebrand - it drives me scatty!!
This comment was last edited on Oct 14, 2010
bum. The link didn't come out. You can either copy and paste the whole lot, or use this bit.ly:
Hope this helps!
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