Solana Seaside is banning balloons stuffed with helium or different lifting gasses, following Metropolis Council approval of a brand new ordinance on April 27.
“Balloons have been an emblem of celebration for therefore lengthy, however the hurt they do is completely nothing to have fun in any respect,” Solana Seaside Mayor Lesa Heebner mentioned.
The ordinance, which is now pending a second studying by the council at a gathering subsequent month, is designed to chop down on plastic air pollution that may accumulate within the ocean and trigger hurt to animals, each within the sea and on land. It might particularly forestall the sale, use and distribution of “any kind of balloon inflated with any gasoline lighter than air inside the metropolis.” It additionally makes it unlawful to launch these kinds of balloons into the air, the place they’ll ultimately fall within the ocean or on land.
The ordinance can also be designed to protect helium for medical causes and different scientific functions.
“We don’t need to waste helium as a result of it’s an necessary useful resource for medical causes,” Solana Seaside resident Kristin Brinner mentioned throughout public remark. “There isn’t any motive for us to be dumping plastics and stuff out in our surroundings. So I hope that that is one other step to eradicating the single-use plastics we’ve polluting our surroundings.”
Residents and native teams such because the Surfrider Basis have been asking for a ban on balloons, based on a report from town supervisor.
Different cities all through the USA have adopted comparable legal guidelines. Earlier this 12 months, the Encinitas Metropolis Council permitted an ordinance to ban balloons stuffed with helium or different lifting gasses.
“As somebody who ceaselessly cleans up the seaside — not in an organized method, I simply do it — there’s method an excessive amount of plastic waste, but in addition balloon waste,” Solana Seaside Metropolis Councilwoman Jewel Edson mentioned. “And it’s stunning, not simply the balloons however the strings that I discover issues tied up in.”
