Hi Lemmy,
I’m organising a funeral, and one of the ideas that has come up is for people to write memories on a balloon and let them go. However, I’ve also heard that they often end up in trees etc and are terrible for the environment.
Is there such a thing as environmentally safe balloons? Other suggestions are also welcome.
Alternative: plantable wildflower seed cards you can write on and then plant and grow flowers
I’ve been to a funeral where the guests wrote their farewells on slips of paper, which were then anonymously read by an officiant before being placed in a large ceramic pot with a small fire. It was much better than the traditional “Would anyone like to say something” followed by uncomfortable silence. People were much more willing to write down their thoughts for someone else to read.
There’s already a couple great suggestions offered here as alternatives to the harmful balloon idea. I just want to say thank you to OP for being thoughtful enough to ask the question in the first place. The world needs more people like you.
Sorry for your loss.
You can use bio-degradable balloons but there is no guarantee they will not end up strangling birds or rendering squirrels immobile. Maybe something that could start degrading some hours after you release it? It might end up safely popped midair without ruining the lives of wildlife.
But let me just add: I think you should not do this at all. It’s too risky to do with traditional balloons, and it might be hard to find these “real/verified” biodegradable balloons, plus no guarantee they actually do what the backside says.
and it might be hard to find these “real/verified” biodegradable balloons
Also, “biodegradable” often means “in recycling facilities in a controlled environment using special machines and processing” when it comes to “biodegradable plastics” and not “just throw them anywhere and nature will handle it”.
Barely related, but a lot of people don’t know as much as they think they know about recycling. That symbol on the bottom of your plastic jugs, jars, etc that looks like the recycling symbol was the result of a campaign to intentionally mislead people into thinking that the containers are recyclable. Those symbols along with the number are identifiers for the types of plastic involved. Different recycling plants are equipped to process different materials, so I’m not saying that no plastic is recyclable, but you’re probably best off just assuming that your plant can’t handle your plastic. Why? Because if they can handle any plastic, it’s probably just one or two of them and you’d need to ask them to be sure, and you’d need to wash away all the food particles and remove labels and adhesive. I’ve heard that failing to do this can contaminate other material which renders that stuff unrecyclable as well, but I’m not sure that’s still true or ever was so don’t @ me on that point lol. I’m also not sure about sorting, but that could be necessary too. And after all that, it’s still very hard to recycle plastic, and you can probably only do it once or twice before it’s not usable anymore.
So what should we do with our plastic? Easy. Stop buying it. Okay, not so easy, but you can choose aluminum or glass containers instead wherever you have the choice. Any reduction is an improvement. Going a step further, see if you can’t reuse your plastic for something else before disposing. Once you’ve gotten a few uses out of it, then you can go through the process of recycling if it’s possible. I’m no genius for suggesting that, btw. That’s literally just what “reduce, reuse, recycle” is telling you to do. It’s in that order for a reason!
TED Talk complete. Hopefully most of you already knew this, but this was for the handful of people who didn’t know!
Okay, not so easy, but you can choose aluminum or glass containers instead wherever you have the choice.
That’s the thing, you usually don’t have that choice. Sure, you can often bring your own containers to buy food. You can also use reusable bags for groceries shopping. You also don’t need those stupid tiny plastic bags for vegetables and fruits. But the impact is very low.
No industry can operate without processing and using plastics and they’re not willing to change because it’s cheaper and easier right now and change would cost them money.
there is no guarantee they will not end up strangling birds or rendering squirrels immobile
At least they’ll decompose along with the body 🙄
Sorry for your loss
Another thing that I’m not seeing people mention is helium balloons wandering to places like power substations and/or power lines, causing outages or even fires/explosions depending.
I liked what someone else said about writing thoughts or stories and having them read anonymously.
