FALMOUTH — As a child growing up on Cape Cod, Faye McGuire had a front row seat to the beauty and fragility of the environment. Raised with a respect for the ocean, there’s one thing that’s always stuck with her: the deflated balloons and plastic debris she’d often fish out of the water during family boat outings.
It bothered her to have to pull such things out of the water, said the now 16-year-old, and over time her concern led her to propose a bylaw banning the intentional release and sale of lighter-than-air balloons in her hometown. On April 7, her efforts paid off as the members of the Falmouth town meeting voted to adopt the ban on a voice vote and with no debate.
McGuire, a junior at Falmouth Academy, on Tuesday recalled the boat trips that started it all.
“Since I was 8 years old, I remember being on balloon or plastic watch and I would point something out,” said McGuire. “We’d turn around in this big wide circle and we’d go back and find it, and it would be a plastic jug or a plastic bag or balloons. For the most part it would be balloons.”
Technically, her bylaw effort began with an “extended inquiry” project at school that prompts students to take a deep dive into a project they’re passionate about. For McGuire, her subject matter was a no-brainer, as the balloon debris that was a concern to her as a child had become a symbol of a much larger issue: the problem of plastic pollution and the threat it poses to the ocean and marine life.
“It has been something I’ve thought about for a long time,” she said.
Turning an idea into community action
The idea of taking her project a bit further and turning it into community action, she said, “mostly started this fall,” and she had the full support of her parents, Chris McGuire and town meeting member Virginia Land McGuire, both former sea captains with the Sea Education Association.
During research, she said, “Cape Cod really stood out” as a place that was already showing concern about the plastic pollution, including balloons. McGuire modeled her proposal on similar bylaws adopted by Chatham and Nantucket, and borrowed enforcement language from the ban on plastic shopping bags that’s already in the town of Falmouth’s code.
McGuire worked with town officials, including the Select Board and the town Solid Waste Advisory Committee, on developing the bylaw, and launched a petition drive to get the ban on the town meeting agenda. Her dad sponsored the effort.
What balloons are banned?
The new prohibition focuses on any type of balloons that are filled with a gas like helium, including balloons made of mylar, latex or plastic.
During her presentation at town meeting, McGuire pointed out that the balloons break down into microplastics, which pollute land and waterways and never leave the ecosystem.
Additionally, she said, the aluminum coating on mylar balloons is flammable.
She further pointed out that balloon debris, including the attached string or ribbons, are particularly harmful to marine life and birds.
“The ribbons are very attractive,” she said, noting they look like jellyfish tentacles to animals, like sea turtles, that eat the jellies and when that happens, “it never ends well for the turtle” or any other animal that ingests or becomes entangled in it.
As part of her presentation, McGuire showed a photo shared with her by a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist — the mother of a friend of hers — of a deflated “It’s a Girl” balloon found 2.3 miles deep in the Gulf of California.
For Faye, the ban her town has adopted is not just about balloons. It’s about teaching people to care about the environment, and “protecting what makes Falmouth special.”
Her father is proud of the effort his daughter has put into the proposal.
“It’s really cool. She really came up with this idea totally on her own,” he said.
How to move an idea forward
He said the effort included a lot of legwork, setting up meetings with the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, the Select Board and others. Faye McGuire said she also emailed every town meeting member about her proposal ahead of the town meeting, receiving a lot of support from them.
Chris McGuire said the family has spent a lot of time at sea on a small boat they sail around in the summer, so it’s not surprising his daughter has a respect for the marine environment.
“Like a lot of Cape Cod kids, you spend a lot of time on the water and see a lot of the good and bad in the water,” he said.
McGuire hopes that her effort may inspire others her age to take up the banner.
“I think it would be really cool to see other teens pick up this ban and do it in other towns,” she said, “and if there’s a lane to take this to the Massachusetts state level, I’d be willing to do that.”
(This story was updated to reflect a typo in a photo caption.)
Heather McCarron writes about climate change, environment, energy, science and the natural world, in addition to news and features in Barnstable and Brewster. Reach her at hmccarron@capecodonline.com
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