Party balloons may be good fun for children but they are bad news for seagulls. Ingesting fragments of discarded balloons kills birds by blocking their guts. One study of dead seabirds found that “balloons were the marine debris most likely to cause mortality”.
But a partial solution, at least, is at hand. Part-funded by an events company, researchers at Imperial College London have developed a less harmful and more biodegradable form of latex. The team, which has now founded the start-up Bioloon to license the technology, estimates its potential market at about $40bn, including medical gloves, clothing and condoms.
Juliana Cumming, the PhD student who led the research, tells me the new material avoids sulphur vulcanisation, which is currently used to make natural rubber strong and stretchy but leaks toxic chemicals. “It’s a modified version of a natural latex blended with a biodegradable polymer,” she says.