This is the time of year when people are celebrating graduations, Memorial Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
Increasingly balloons are involved and that’s a growing environmental problems.
I and others who spend outdoors regularly find balloons that were released or got away from their owners and end up in natural areas, such as the one depicted here that was in Sumica, a Polk County environmental preserve east of Lake Wales.
Sometimes they are simply eyesores, but the balloons and the tethers can affect wildlife negatively.
This kind of problem is one reason this year state legislators were requested to allow cities to experiment with plastic bag bans because of their effects on the environment.
Balloons, after all, are nothing more than sealed plastic bags.
We need to rethink how and how often we use balloons outdoors.