What happens when a ballon is released outside...?

Question

i remember when some school had balloon day and released hundreds of helium inflated baloons. i just thought that can't be good.
isn't it the opposite of littering. instead of the falling to the ground it goes up in the sky. but what goes up must come down right? so does it ever come back down to earth or what. and what about planes. i'm choc full of questions here. :)

Answer 1

not so bad really. Eventually enough helium will leak out and the balloon will come down.
The balloon is so fragile I doubt it would hurt an airplane.
My only concern is what happens when the balloon comes down. Most of them are at least partially latex and that stuff takes a long time to break down. I do hope birds and other creatures don't get tangled in them, but I have never heard of such a thing.

Answer 2

<>Anything that does not escape the force of planetary gravitation "comes back down" eventually. That includes balloons, planes, and satellites. Helium balloons released into the atmosphere will not cause any pollution when they rupture. Helium is a naturally occurring Earth gas (albeit a small percentage of the atmoshere). The balloons themselves are litter, yes, but how many balloons do you see on the ground as opposed to, say, McDonalds containers? I'd rather see 1000 balloons a day go up and come down than all the other trash that gets discarded!

Answer 3

I'm assuming these are ordinary hellium-filled balloons.

The balloons have weight of their own, which acts as a ballast, so they won't achieve orbit or anything near that; rather, when their ballast reaches an equilibrium with the surrounding air pressure they'll stop rising. Of course, wind patterns, humidity, temperature, pressure changes, and other things may alter that course, in fact, if the surrounding air pressure is low enough they'll burst and fall back to the ground. Eventually the helium in the balloons will leak out anyway and they'll settle to the ground.

It does end up being littering... but how is anyone to know who's balloons they are? ;)

Answer 4

there have been many complaints from environmentalist about the release of ballons like that. they do come back down and have been found in the stomachs and intestines of dead animals. supposedly killed them but that is a claim and not one that i know to be confirmed. at any rate, the least is that it is pollution, balloons biodegrade at a very slow rate.

Answer 5

it goes up