Up, up and away.

That’s where Bainbridge City Councilman Mike Scott went last week.

Councilman Scott got a little carried away, we think, with his suggestion that the city should ban the sale and use of balloons.

Yes, balloons. Those indispensable decorations of childhood birthday parties, joyous retirement gatherings, high school homecoming floats and festive Fourth of July parades. But let’s not leave out the city’s recent National Night Out celebration, which featured balloons of all shapes and sizes from one end of Town Square to the other.

Scott’s soaring proposal was aimed at preventing “potential hazards to fish, wildlife and human health.”

Included in his proposal were multiple photographs of busted balloons that had become litter, and birds and other animals that had died after eating balloons.

It’s a shame that animals and the environment many times come up on the losing end of man-made things. It’s sad we can’t live in greater harmony with the earth and all living things.

But balloons?

What’s next, banning birthday candles because they contribute to global warning? Outlawing the sale of window cleaning products because birds fly into windows? (About a billion birds die every year from window strikes in the U.S. alone, by the way.)

But banning balloons?

We were intrigued, admittedly, about what additional steps would be needed to make the ban a total success? A customs-style toll booth at the Agate Pass Bridge, with officers in badges and uniforms asking visitors if they have any balloons to declare? The Washington State Patrol’s explosive-detecting dogs at the ferry terminal, retrained and ready to sniff out any mylar or non-biodegradable balloon-type materials? Fire-lookout towers relocated from our national forests, manned with spotters with binoculars, ready to report any wayward balloons floating over the island?

Setting lofty fantasies aside, let’s remember that here on Bainbridge, people can do all sorts of things now that are bad for the environment with little worry of city-imposed dictates. Charging your phone overnight; leaving the faucet running while brushing your teeth; keeping the lights on after you’ve left the room.

That’s not saying such activities are laudable, but only that in a free society, we must trust people to make the best choices for themselves and the world they want to live in.

We applaud Councilman Scott for his concern for the environment, but the ban on the sale of balloons was government overreach on a grand scale.

And so we heartily salute his fellow council members who brought this proposal back down to earth, and suggested changes to the ordinance that would not prohibit the sale and use of balloons, but only their uncontrolled release into the sky.

And we are relieved that animals of the bended balloon variety are not now headed to the endangered species list.