Ban on releasing balloons in Rotterdam

Rotterdam’s city council has decided that it wants to ban releasing helium-filled balloons in the air by the end of 2019. Balloons bits cause rubbish that ends up on the streets, parks, beaches and in the water, and this practice is straight up bad for the environment. Littering is punishable by a fine, and releasing balloons for whatever reason cannot be an exception.

Amsterdam was the first big Dutch city to stop the practice in 2015, while smaller cities such as Zeist, Utrecht and Den Bosch, Noord-Brabant also have a ban. Now that Rotterdam is joining in, The Hague is planning to follow suit, as well as Utrecht at some point.

Helium-filled balloons are fine, but letting them go at parties or weddings will no longer be allowed and are already frowned upon in better circles. Changes need to be made to local law, but it will be nice to have a proper ban in the Randstad, the four big cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.

(Links: rijnmond.nl, nltimes.nl)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2019 at 9:09 pm and is filed under General, Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.