Letter: Party poopers should look to their own helium waste

From Roger Whatmore, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s lovely article on the origins and scarcity of terrestrial helium reminds me of a tour I had, about five years ago, around the chemistry lab of a leading UK university (13 July, p 22). It had very impressive, high-performance nuclear magnetic resonance machines. We asked our guide whether the liquid helium in the superconducting magnets in these was recovered and recycled.

We were told that both the university management and funding agencies would rather pay for the helium as a consumable than invest in the kit needed to recover it. A few months later, a senior academic from that department was interviewed and took the opportunity to condemn the use of helium in children’s party balloons as a waste of a valuable non-renewable resource. He seemed oblivious to the irony.

Figures on the use of helium in entertainment products vary, but are a fraction of that consumed by research and medicine.