From Australian Oceans Data Network
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Degradation study of latex balloons in freshwater, saltwater and industrial compost environments

Created 13/03/2025

Updated 13/03/2025

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Latex balloons act like plastic in the ocean: they can travel far from their point of origin on atmospheric and water currents and float at the sea surface where they can be eaten by wildlife that mistake it for food. This study quantified the degradation behaviours of latex balloons in saltwater, freshwater, and industrial compost windrows over 16 weeks. The degradation of latex balloons was quantified with bi-weekly measurements of 1) changes in mass; 2) ultimate tensile strength; and 3) changes in surficial composition of balloons via attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). This study tested whether degradation differed between two balloon colours (blue and white) and whether degradation differed between balloons whose packaging labels included the word "biodegradable" and balloons whose packaging did not contain the word "biodegradable", and were thus labeled as "traditional" balloons. Thus, these data consist of 1) mass measurements; 2) load-extension data used to determine ultimate tensile strength; and 3) ATR-FTIR spectra of latex balloons across the variables balloon type (biodegradable; traditional), colour (blue; white), and week sampled (0-16 weeks). Also included are measurements of balloons that did not undergo treatments and are either straight out of the package ("new") or balloons that were inflated but did not undergo any treatments ("inflated").

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Title Degradation study of latex balloons in freshwater, saltwater and industrial compost environments
Language eng
Licence notspecified
Landing Page https://devweb.dga.links.com.au/data/dataset/0f129ad2-f588-4056-8266-d5d090c379af
Contact Point
CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere
morgan.gilmour@utas.edu.au
Reference Period 04/09/2019 - 12/12/2019
Geospatial Coverage {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[147.114326477, -41.4071462042], [147.132865906, -41.4071462042], [147.132865906, -41.3942165201], [147.114326477, -41.3942165201], [147.114326477, -41.4071462042]]]}
Data Portal data.gov.au