Recently 100,000 tonnes of plastic recycling were set on fire in Birmingham by a Chinese lantern. In case you don’t know what a Chinese lantern is, think of a paper balloon, with a candle on the bottom that heats the air and lets the lantern rise. So basically, you have a floating fire, set adrift on the breeze.
Last night wifey returned from her book group to find one of these lanterns resting against our front door. Right next to our front lawn that’s brown from the heat and probably eminently flammable. Likewise the back garden is parched and there is a skip just down the road. Wifey said it was typically our luck it had dropped by our house but I think we were actually very lucky. This could have easily caused a fire given how dry everything is at the moment.So in my mind, it’s time to call for a complete outright ban of these flying arson devices. What do you think?