A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Some Mardi Gras parades are banning one of their most colorful traditions - tossing out plastic beads. Organizers are trying to cut down on the millions of pounds of trash they make each year. Matt Bloom with member station WWNO stepped out on the streets of New Orleans for a closer look.
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MATT BLOOM, BYLINE: Plastic beads are pretty much synonymous with Mardi Gras parades, but at this one held this past weekend, they were notably absent.
BONNIE HILL: (Shouting) Hey, hey, hey.
BLOOM: Parade-goer Bonnie Hill waves her hands as a float shaped like a medieval castle passes by. Riders toss dozens of throws, as they're called, in the air. There's frisbees, a toy sword, stuffed animals and more.
Oh, my gosh. Wait. What did you get there?
HILL: Glass beads.
BLOOM: Notably, much smaller than the usual plastic beads. The group putting this parade on - called the Krewe of Freret -used 250,000 strands of plastic beads last year. But this year, they're not using any. Hill says she's happy to see that.
HILL: I love that so many of the crews are doing that. It's so important, and they're throwing less.
BLOOM: At least two major parades have stopped using plastic beads altogether. That's because many end up in landfills or clog the city's drainage system. That's led to more calls to ditch them altogether.
BOBBY HJORTSBERG: Honestly, it was a very easy decision.
BLOOM: Bobby Hjortsberg is captain of the Krewe of Freret. He says he came to the realization on Mardi Gras Day last year.
HJORTSBERG: My 1-year-old daughter was wearing a strand of beads, and I saw them start to, like, bleed onto her neck. Like, they started to fade into her, like, clothing.
BLOOM: Meaning the paint color from the beads was staining her skin and clothes.
HJORTSBERG: I just, like, remember thinking to myself, like, what are we doing? Like, this is obviously not a good thing.
BLOOM: Now they're replacing beads with more useful throws, like packs of jambalaya ingredients.
CIVIA HEBERT: I have cooked the jambalaya that I've caught in the parades, and it's delicious.
BLOOM: Civia Hebert is on the sidewalk with her husband, Tommy, and daughter, Lucy. The family is keeping an eye on the floats for a chocolate-covered MoonPie.
LUCY: And I got a cookie.
BLOOM: What kind?
LUCY: Like, a marshmallow cookie, like...
TOMMY HEBERT: There's only one kind - MoonPie.
C HEBERT: MoonPie.
BLOOM: They also caught a bag of red beans and sugar cubes throughout the night, which they say they definitely won't put to waste.
For NPR News, I'm Matt Bloom in New Orleans.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROFESSOR LONGHAIR SONG, "BIG CHIEF") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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