I READ in Harry Mead’s column (Echo, May 7) about the cancellation of a balloon race in aid of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute as it was thought sending balloons into the sky would be damaging to the environment.

This pales into insignificance compared to an event that happened in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1986, called Balloon Fest. It was held to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the most balloons ever launched. It won with 1.5 million helium balloons set aloft by artist Tom Holowach from a specially built concrete and steel building. The event cost $500,000 and 2,500 students blew up the balloons with the non-renewable resource, helium.

Can you imagine the carnage that must have happened when all of these balloons burst and polluted the waterways and nearby Lake Erie? Birds, fish and marine mammals ingest this plastic and die. All this happened to gratify the urge of observing a visual spectacle. The spectacle became a debacle. How can people do this?

The only event worse is setting off Chinese lanterns.

Malcolm Rolling, Carrville, Durham.