Shopper shares photo of painfully ironic Earth Day product: 'That's like going to someone's birthday and giving them their coffin'

Earth Day has been around for over 50 years — but it seems that some people haven't gotten the message. One person posted in the subreddit r/AntiConsumption sharing a photo of an egregiously ironic product: plastic Earth-shaped balloons labeled for "Earth Day Celebrations." 

"Celebrate Earth Day with a plastic that takes hundreds of years to decompose," they wrote grimly.

Commenters were similarly unamused. 

"Oof. do people really not see the irony here?" one person asked.

It's like "a bon voyage party for our planet," another commented sarcastically.

While they can be a fun way to celebrate, balloon releases simply aren't worth it. Instead, one moment of excitement ends up polluting the environment for decades. 

"I live on 21 acres and every other week I find another balloon — sadly sometimes with deceased wildlife," the OP wrote.

Balloons are a particularly harmful type of pollution because they're made with plastic, so they don't decompose; they just get smaller. The smaller the pieces of plastic are, the more likely an innocent animal will ingest them. Plastic pollution is an issue in every ecosystem on the planet, from forests to the deepest oceans.

"I once found a decaying bird with plastic bits and a shiny balloon in its abdomen," one person wrote. "It's so sad and pointless."

The problem is becoming so urgent that some places, like Virginia, have outlawed balloon releases and issue fines to anyone caught doing them. Several countries in the UN are also in talks considering a pact to reduce plastic production by 40% by 2040.

Unfortunately, despite the increasing awareness of the dangers of plastic pollution, people continue to release balloons for birthday parties, gender reveal parties, bridal showers, and holidays. 

"That's like going to someone's birthday and giving them their coffin," one person wrote. Even more ironically, the Earth Day website has an entire page dedicated to combating plastic pollution.

Instead, several people are turning to using recycleddecorations — which are also free — in place of buying plastic balloons. Other people are making similar efforts to repurpose plastic waste rather than generate even more of it, like the entrepreneur turning plastic water bottles into brooms or the company making furniture out of old shoes.

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