The million balloons

On 27 of September 1986 a charity in Cleveland Ohio, as a fundraiser and in an attempt to break a Guinness World Record released almost 1.5 million balloons into the sky.

Seriously.

6 months were spent planning, a structure the size of a city block with a net over the top held the balloons which were inflated by students and volunteers. With a storm approaching the organisers released the balloons a lot earlier than they had planned.

Something you should know about helium balloons is that as they climb (which they never should- stop releasing balloons!) they normally climb high enough to deflate and then they fall to the ground to kill birds. These balloons however hit a big patch of cold storm-front air and immediately fell back to earth fully inflated.

Balloons were found in the Canadian coast of Lake Erie. They also caused car crashes and impeded the rescue of two fishermen who died because they couldn’t be seen by the coast guard. The coast guard described seeing only “an asteroid field of balloons” and did not rescue the men because they could not be seen. The local airport was closed. Many animals surely died.

The 1988 copy of the Guinness Book of World Records recognised this event as the "largest ever mass balloon release", with 1,429,643 balloons launched. Because of the incredible harm caused to the environment by these silly stunts Guinness no longer measures environmentally damaging events like this.

Balloons are the #1 deadliest form of litter when ingested by seabirds releasing balloons makes them end up in oceans or waterways, harming and even killing precious wildlife.

Don’t blow balloons at your festivities, blow bubbles instead, for more to here: zoo.org.au/balloons/