Technology

I'd guess that most industrial users of helium don't consume it and could theoretically recover it from whatever process it's involved in rather than just releasing it.

EDIT: Hard drives being an exception, as apparently some ship helium-filled; there, it's actually being consumed during the manufacture.

EDIT2: I'd also point out that in the long run, we probably do have to be more conservative with our helium supply. We get it from pockets in the earth. It's actually not all that common; it just happens, though, that we go to a lot of effort to extract natural gas, and that happens to sometimes also come up with helium, so we get that supply. But because it's not reactive, it doesn't bond to anything

it stays in gas form. When we let it go, it heads to near the top of our atmosphere and eventually gets lost to solar wind. Many users who today just release it

because why not, as the natural gas people will be providing more, and it's cheaper that way

probably will need to capture what they're using if we want helium to continue to be available.