In case you’re not aware, you can buy helium canisters from Party Time and other stores. The canister looks like a lightweight, pink propane tank for your propane grill.

Only, here’s the thing – they’re disposable. You not only don’t have to turn them in to be refilled and reused, you CAN’T. Party Time (and presumably others) don’t accept them. Instead, you’re expected to punch a hole in them so they can’t hold pressure (for safety reasons) and turn them in at the local dump for scrap metal. I did this and saw a basket of like 20–25 that had been dropped off that day…and it was only noon.

My response to this is—- WHAT!?! How, in this day and age are we not even attempting to reuse these? A propane tank you would just turn in at the hardware store for another that was filled, and the store out put propane into the tank at their leisure. How is this not a thing for helium? They clearly CAN do it – they got the helium in there the first time. Is it just not economical to ship? It was economical enough to ship them with the helium.

Life has taught me that when something bizarre like this is happening, there’s usually an economic variable I’m not seeing. So someone help me. What am I missing here?