Farmer Expresses Concern Over Seemingly Harmless Balloons That Are Silently Ruining Farms

Balloons mean celebration. Be it a wedding ceremony, a birthday party, or a healing ritual, people hold on to these colorful, glossy balloons as long as it is necessary, and then they gently let them go. The balloons launch towards the sky, and the moment they arrive in the atmosphere, the pressure of the barrelling winds causes them to burst and deflate. The resulting deflated plastic then plummets down on the ground, often falling into oceans and threatening wildlife. In a TikTok video, South Jersey farmer Timberline Farms (@timberlinefarmsnj) vented out his frustration after noticing balloons repeatedly littering the grounds of his farm. “I could have accidentally eaten this,” he lamented in the caption.

About 71 percent of planet Earth is made up of water. So when these balloons are released into the air, the probability that they will end up inside an ocean is quite high. Even when they end up in farms or grasslands, winds can easily blow them away and push them into the oceans. Longwood University reported the case of a juvenile green sea turtle that washed up on shore in Argentina. When doctors cut up its stomach, they found the plastic of balloons clinging to it. In 1985, a 15-foot-long sperm whale washed up on a New Jersey beach, with a balloon sticking inside its stomach.

In September 1987, another case of a leatherback turtle came to light. Its dead body contained traces of plastic. The university explains that nowadays, incidents like these are not unusual. Oftentimes, when these balloons end up inside oceans, creatures like sea turtles, whales, and albatrosses mistake their shimmery plastic for jellyfish or seagrasses. Thinking it to be food, they gobble them up and end up dying from suffocation. The farmer from Timberline Farms called out on the viciousness of people who recklessly release these balloons.

“Mad on. I swear to god, if I find out which one of you [...] is letting off balloons all helter skelter. The number of balloons that I find on this farm. Who was it? Who did it?” The bearded farmer said while walking around on a grassy patch of his farm. At one point, he focused the camera on the grass and picked up a crumpled piece of plastic, which turned out to be a deflated balloon. “This is for a 1-year-old's birthday. They ain't even gonna remember this. But I will,” he chuntered, before wrapping up the video.

Viewers were left heartbroken by the video. Some of them expressed frustration about the matter of this ever-increasing balloon litter in New Jersey farmlands. “I know where it came from, all of them. They are from the Dollar General on the corner,” commented @smiley. @heather said, “Nothing pi**ed me off more than balloons being released.” It’s not just a moody disparaging of balloon littering that this farmer and the viewers expressed. Even scientists have presented evidence of how this littering problem can pose severe danger to the environment.

 A 2015 paper published in the journal Marine Policy documented evidence that balloons are among the “most dangerous types of pollution” for coastal wildlife, along with fishing gear and plastic bags. They get stuck in animals’ throats, and many lose their lives after getting entangled in their plastic. Ocean Conservancy also released a report in 2017, proclaiming that balloons are one of the “top deadly forms of litter,” including those that are advertised as “biodegradable.”

You can follow Timberline Farms (@timberlinefarmsnj) on TikTok for food and farming-related videos.

More on Green Matters

Scientists Find the Biggest Source of Microplastic Pollution — and It’s Not Straws or Grocery Bags

Dolphin Picks up a Plastic Bag Floating in the Ocean — Then Deliberately Hands It Over to Humans

‘Is It Snowing Plastic in Antarctica?’ Explorer Reveals the Grim Reality Found in a Remote Location