Helium - a problem we shouldn't be making light of ?

Most GCSE specifications include a section on RESOURCES, and the social, economic and environmental impacts of their extraction.

An article in the Daily Mail recently revealed a possible new resource case study focus....


Party balloons are filled with helium, and cannisters can be bought from many high street card shops.

Apparently there is a relatively small amount of the gas left, and because it's inert, it's difficult to make any more of it. This wouldn't be a problem if the only thing we'd lose were those helium balloons which it seems to have become the fashion to bring into school and have waving around in classrooms when it's someone's birthday (or maybe that was just the school where I taught ?)
However, helium is also apparently required for MRI SCANS and other more important uses.

This might be an interesting area to research further as a possible new case study.
What other 'alternative' resource case studies are there that might replace the open cast coal mine or the Trans-Alaskan oil pipeline...

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