Louisiana becomes 12th state to ban balloon releases
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana; GLASGOW, Scotland––Effective on August 1, 2026, intentionally releasing a balloon or planning the organized release of 12 or more balloons became illegal in Louisiana.
Violations carry fines ranging from $500 up to $2,500.
Act 196, amending the Louisiana littering law to include outdoor balloon releases, easily cleared both houses of the Louisiana legislature in May 2026, but became law without the signature of governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, who vetoed a similar bill in 2025, calling it unenforceable.
Exempted from Act 196 are releasing balloons made from biodegradable or photo-biodegradable materials, meaning materials that degrade in sunlight, along with the use of balloons for scientific, meteorological, and radio tracking purposes.
Symbol of mourning
“In neighborhoods across New Orleans and throughout Louisiana,” reported Lily Cummings for WWL television in New Orleans, “it is a scene local communities know far too well: families and friends gathering in moments of deep grief, letting go of colorful helium balloons as they hold tight to the memory of someone taken too soon.”
However, Cummings explained, “State lawmakers pushed the ban to protect local waterways and prevent harm to wildlife, which frequently ingest or become entangled in balloon debris.
“For the New Orleans metro area, the environmental and infrastructure risks of balloon releases are already well documented.
“Nearly two years ago,” Cummings recalled, “the city passed its own ban on Mylar balloon releases after metallic balloons tangled in power lines, knocking out electricity and tripping critical pumps at the Sewerage & Water Board.”
Eleven other states also now ban or restrict balloon releases, including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Pushing for ban in Scotland
Meanwhile in Glasgow, Scotland, wrote Animal Concern Scotland secretary Elena Edwards, “On July 21, 2026, farmer Kraig Kerr found his three-month-old calf on his farm in Fife, lying dead with a deflated helium balloon protruding from her mouth. The calf had choked to death on the balloon after mistaking it for something edible.
“Just looking at the picture of the deceased three-month-old calf should be enough,” Edwards suggested, “to make anyone choke up at the thought of the suffering she endured.
“Deaths caused by deflated balloons are entirely preventable. They have no place in the sky, and no place among animals,” Edwards said.
Farmer Kraig Kerr testified to BBC Scotland that this was the sixth time in 2026 alone that a deflated helium balloon landed in his pastures.
“In recent months,” continued Edwards, “there has been a surge in the release of helium balloons as a means of remembering loved ones who tragically died.
“Littering is a criminal offense”
“Glasgow Live announced one such intended event planned for last month in Ayrshire. In 2024, it was great news when the Ayrshire Council supported our campaign to ban the release of helium balloons and sky lanterns and implemented a ban for North Ayrshire, as noted in the Ayrshire Daily News.
“We pointed out that littering is a criminal offense.”
Unfortunately, “While a councilor from North Ayrshire attempted to contact the organizers to encourage them to find an alternative way to remember the loss of a community member, the balloon release went ahead,” Edwards remembered.
“Fife is one of the councils that has banned the release of helium balloons,” Edwards mentioned, “just as North Ayrshire was. It is clear council bans are meaningless unless they are enforced, but more importantly, there needs to be a nationwide ban on the release of helium balloons and sky lanterns, or ‘skyborne litter’, which can travel from private land to council land and beyond.
Seeking national ban & meaningful enforcement
“Animal Concern,” Edwards pledged, “will continue pushing for a nationwide ban across Scotland, and for meaningful enforcement.
“In the meantime,” Edwards added, “we are engaging with venues which host events that might allow the release of helium balloons, sky lanterns and fireworks, asking them to sign a pledge to be ‘animal safe’ venues and to use animal friendly alternatives.”
Around the United Kingdom, including Scotland, England, and Wales, around 100 local councils have already banned balloon releases. The only nations to ban balloon releases –– sort of –– are Denmark and Finland, which prosecute releases of unretrieved balloons as littering.
Sky lanterns
Efforts to ban sky lanterns in particular briefly gained momentum after a January 1, 2020 fire caused by flying cylindrical paper lanterns propelled by small votive candles landed on the thatched roofs of animal housing at the Krefeld Zoo in Krefeld, Germany, killing more than 30 apes, monkeys, bats and birds.
(See Krefeld Zoo fire killed 30+ animals due to poor design & preparation.)
Within a few months, however, that momentum was lost amid the global onslaught of COVID 19, killing more than 3.4 million people worldwide, including 385,000 Americans.
Memorial balloon releases took off, and have yet to slow down. Selling balloons for release has exploded into a $2.8 billion business worldwide, growing at 5% to 6% per year, with a quarter of the sales occurring within the United States.
De rigueur after deaths of children
Balloon releases have become almost de rigueur, meaning expected by current etiquette, after the deaths of children, in particular.
For instance, a balloon release was scheduled for the evening of April 5, 2025 in Baytown, Texas, in remembrance of six-month-old pit bull attack victim K’yomi Kapri Temple.
Facebook announcements of the balloon release are how ANIMALS 24-7 learned of K’yomi Kapri Temple’s death.
(See Pit bulls kill two more babies & a 43-year-old man in first days of April.)
The Cleveland catastrophe
The hazards associated with balloon releases may have first become memorably evident almost 40 years ago, on September 27, 1986, when United Way in Cleveland, Ohio sponsored Balloonfest ’86, a fundraiser aimed at breaking a world record set the year before when Disneyland in California released one million balloons to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the amusement park opening.
United Way hired Treb Heining, engineer of the Disneyland balloon release, to launch 1.5 million balloons from Public Square, Cleveland, in front of the Terminal Tower.
As many as 2,500 volunteers, mostly recruited from local high schools, inflated the helium balloons, storing them in a net measuring 250 feet long, 150 feet wide, rising three floors high.
Balloon sponsorships were sold at two for a dollar.
United Way lost money
With a rainstorm approaching, the balloon launch came with “only” 1,429,643 million balloons inflated. An estimated 100,000 spectators watched the takeoff––but instead of the balloons floating away over Lake Erie, rain and cold air caused them to rapidly deflate and fall, forcing the Burke Lakefront Airport to temporarily close a runway; blinding drivers, causing traffic accidents; and preventing the Coast Guard from finding two missing boaters, later found drowned.
According to Wikipedia, “The wife of one of the boaters sued the United Way of Cleveland and the company that organized the balloon release for $3.2 million, and later settled on undisclosed terms.
“Balloons landing on a pasture in Geauga County, Ohio, spooked Louise Nowakowski’s Arabian horses, who allegedly suffered permanent injuries as a result. Nowakowski sued the United Way of Cleveland for $100,000 in damages and settled for undisclosed terms.
“The fundraiser lost money due to cost overruns.”
Indianapolis 500 quit balloon releases after 75 years
Before 1986 perhaps the best-known balloon releases were conducted annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, just before the start of the Indianapolis 500 car race.
Opened in 1909, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway introduced the Indy 500 car race in 1911. Indianapolis factories at the time manufactured more cars than were made in any city outside of Detroit.
Balloon releases did not begin, according to the official Indianapolis Motor Speedway history, until 1947, at the suggestion of then-speedway owner Tony Hulman’s mother, Grace Smith Hulman.
Eventually as many as 40,000 balloons per year were released to drift wherever.
Taking the checkered flag in 2022 after a successful five-year campaign against the Indy 500 balloon releases, the Florida-based all-volunteer grassroots activist group Balloons Blow earned a victory lap.
(See Indianapolis 500: still a car race, but no longer a balloon chase.)
Clemson Tigers quit balloon releases in 2018
Balloons Blow founder Danielle Vosburgh, reported Douglas Bevington for Counterpunch on May 18, 2020, formed Balloons Blow in 2011, at age 23, after participating in Florida beach clean-ups and seeing first hand the effects of balloon waste––often mistaken by birds and sea turtles for the jellyfish that form parts of their diets––on marine life.
(See Which are more deadly, balloons or alligators?)
“Balloons Blow began as a website and a social media presence, and soon Vosburgh was hearing from people around the world who have witnessed the widespread impact of balloons—including an example of one found high up on a glacier,” Bevington wrote.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Danielle decided to try to stop some particularly highly-profile, large-scale balloon releases. One of her early targets was the Clemson University football team in South Carolina,” Bevington recounted, “which had been featuring huge balloon releases at home games since the early 1980s. It took seven years of persistent advocacy,” but in 2018 Clemson quit the balloon releases, setting an example now drifting globally, erratically, somewhat like balloons themselves.
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An issue I hadn’t thought of, yet we often see the remnants of downed balloons in bright rubber or foil. Thank you Merritt and Beth
I’ve never understood this practice, as my family never did it and I’ve always realized how pointless and potentially dangerous it is.
Laws are unenforceable in lawless societies like this one, but perhaps some people will honor them.
Thanking you for informing us.
I’m so glad to see this progress. We passed a similar law in Las Vegas in conjunction with a prior one that prohibited the sale of helium-filled foil balloons. While I understand the enforcement issue, the goal was primarily to raise awareness and provide a cautionary message to the public.
Further helping the efforts was Desert Balloon Project, a grassroots organization, founded by Christian Daniels who routinely cleans up balloons from the surrounding desert and wildlife habitats. I nominated this young man to PETA for a well-deserved acknowledgment: https://www.peta2.com/culture/desert-balloon-project-award/
I am ashamed to say, that I was largely ignorant of the extensive lethal damage that releasing of balloons and similar items had on animals and the general environment, though having read this investigative report, I now understand it to be so apparent to anyone who thought it through.
I cannot thank you enough for this desperately needed alert and now that I know of the harmful consequences of this decorus activity, I will join others who protest their use with vigor.
That those who are informed and yet continue to employ them in any manner, I deem their actions to be highly negligent and unforgivable. Obviously their avarice overrides not only common sense but also culpability. Shame!!!! Laws must be past and vigorously enforced !
Every time I see a news story about some local family whose loved one has died – usually as a result of a shooting or other violent incident – they are ALWAYS shown at a gathering for their dearly departed with a bunch of balloons that they release, and I literally SCREAM with anger at the sheer stupidity of this. We have known about this for 40 years – why is this still even an issue today???
I live in Philadelphia, where this happens a LOT. If you travel 2 hours in any direction, you will find farmland, the New Jersey shore and various wildlife preserves. I cannot understand why on earth New Jersey and Pennsylvania have not already outlawed these idiotic balloon releases.
As for families and friends mourning their dead, there are MUCH BETTER WAYS of memorializing these people than releasing a bunch of plastic and string that will do nothing but cause miserable death to other species from swallowing the plastic to string getting wrapped around birds’ legs.
Frankly, this should be a NATIONAL law, not state by state.
Another story of lies about our extremely sucessful Guinness World Record balloon release done in 1986 – you can find the real story here – done by the wonderful folks at Cleveland.com who got tired of people telling the same lies over and over again…
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/06/where-truth-ends-and-fake-news-begins-on-clevelands-1986-balloonfest-letter-from-the-editor.html
So sad that you are contributing to the lies about Balloonfest after so many years – balloon releaases have not been done by the professional balloon industry for more than 30 years – very sad that you are so afraid of the truth just because it does not fit your narrative…
The comment above comes from Treb Heining, who orchestrated both the 1985 release of 1.2 million balloons at Disneyland and the Balloonfest ’86 release of nearly 1.5 million balloons in Cleveland. The 2023 article to which Heining links, by Chris Quinn, who was then editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, contradicts nothing whatever in the ANIMALS 24-7 summary of the event, but argues that Balloonfest ’85 was not recognized as an ecodisaster until a Plain Dealer retrospective appeared in 2011.
Bob Schoelkopf, however, who in 1978 founded the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, New Jersey, and headed it for 44 years, cited mass balloon releases as ecodisasters, mentioning specifically Balloonfest ’86 among many others, to Gar Smith of Pacific News Service as early as July 26, 1988.