Cheapest Helium Balloons?

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  spackbace on 28/05/2015 - 10:11

  Inflated or not? Assuming inflated. Try Spotlight, or Lombards (not sure if its in your state)

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  YTW on 28/05/2015 - 10:31

  +1

  Big W is starting to introduce party sections in their stores - not sure how they price compared to elsewhere but would suspect they'd be quite competitive.

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  [Deactivated] on 28/05/2015 - 10:32

  We got the 50 balloon disposable helium gas canister from the party people in Sydney for around $100 last year worked great, no stress ordered online in advance took 2 of us about an hour to fill the balloons and tie matching ribbons on them.

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  trex on 28/05/2015 - 12:07

  Big W and Spotlight sells DIY helium tanks for about AUD40 or so (you could use the Big W 10% discount). The tank comes with balloons but can usually fill more than the balloons supplied.

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  strikerzebra on 28/05/2015 - 12:09

  Cheapest way is to buy the balloons and hire the helium tank.

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  mini2 on 30/05/2015 - 09:23

  Bought one from Big W last weekend, they've said the balloon will last for around 3 days (I think that's to cover their ass) and it's still half inflated. Cheaper than what a florist would've ripped me off.

  However, some of their staff is still a bit green with the whole process…the chick that inflated mine didn't tight the rope on the right spot, the balloon nearly floated away :(

• 

  zally on 19/08/2015 - 15:32

  +2

  They are all too cheap.

  Excerpts from an article in The Independent, UK -

  Helium is the second-lightest element in the Universe, has the lowest boiling-point of any gas and is commonly used through the
  world to inflate party balloons. But helium is also a non-
  renewable resource and the world's reserves of the precious
  gas are about to run out, a shortage that is likely to have far-
  reaching repercussions.
  Scientists have warned that the world's most commonly used
  inert gas is being depleted at an astonishing rate because of a
  law passed in the United States in 1996 which has effectively
  made helium too cheap to recycle.

  The experts warn that the world could run out of helium
  within 25 to 30 years, potentially spelling disaster for hospitals,
  whose MRI scanners are cooled by the gas in liquid form, and
  anti-terrorist authorities who rely on helium for their radiation
  monitors, as well as the millions of children who love to watch
  their helium-filled balloons float into the sky.

  Despite the critical role that the gas plays in the modern world,
  it is being depleted as an unprecedented rate and reserves
  could dwindle to virtually nothing within a generation, warns
  Nobel laureate Robert Richardson, professor of physics at
  Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

  The basic problem is that helium is too cheap.
  The Earth is 4.7 billion years old and it has taken that long to
  accumulate our helium reserves, which we will dissipate in
  about 100 years. One generation does not have the right to
  determine availability for ever."

  Professor Richardson believes the price for helium should rise
  by between 20- and 50-fold to make recycling more
  worthwhile.

  Professor Richardson also believes that party balloons filled
  with helium are too cheap, and they should really cost about
  $100 (£75) to reflect the precious nature of the gas they
  contain.
  "Once helium is released into the atmosphere in the form of
  party balloons or boiling helium it is lost to the Earth forever,
  lost to the Earth forever," he emphasised.

  Sorry to be a party-pooper, but it is something to think about…