MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's Mardi Gras season in New Orleans, when paradegoers look forward to catching things like beads. Now, often these beads are made of plastic. But plastic beads can be toxic and bad for the environment, so some Mardi Gras organizers are turning to locally recycled glass. Drew Hawkins with the Gulf States Newsroom reports.
CHRIS POMFRET: Just try to be courteous and respectful.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS CLANKING)
DREW HAWKINS, BYLINE: It's Saturday morning in Algiers Point in New Orleans. And for this neighborhood, that means it's glass recycling day. Chris Pomfret lives here, and he started the glass collection back in 2019.
POMFRET: It's like a farmer with his herd of cows - they've got to be milked every day. This has to happen every week, no matter what, because the public expects it.
HAWKINS: New Orleans hasn't had a glass recycling program since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. So people in this neighborhood bring their glass - a lot of wine, beer and liquor bottles - to one of the local churches. Pomfret says they collect about 1,000 pounds each week.
POMFRET: It brings the community together. We meet and chat with a lot of people here, which is nice. It serves the community. It serves an environmental purpose, and we've got the people who are happy to do it.
HAWKINS: The glass is hauled over to Glass Half Full. The company turns the bottles into sand that's used to help rebuild Louisiana's disappearing coastline. This year, they're also turning some of those bottles into beads.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS JINGLING)
HAWKINS: That's because the company's cofounder and CEO, Franziska Trautmann, is also a Mardi Gras queen. She was chosen to be the queen of Krewe du Vieux. The Mardi Gras walking parade is known for its raunchy costumes and satirical themes.
FRANZISKA TRAUTMANN: And I freaked out because Krewe du Vieux is truly one of my favorite parades, not just because it's, like, fun and artistic, but it always has a message.
HAWKINS: The krewe's theme this year is Save Our Wet Glands, characteristic wordplay on Louisiana's coastal crisis, where a football field's worth of land is lost every 100 minutes to erosion and rising sea levels.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAWKINS: Trautmann used the recycled glass beads to make necklaces, bracelets and key chains to throw to the crowds at their parade last weekend.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAWKINS: Her message as queen is simple. Mardi Gras can still be fun without plastic beads.
TRAUTMANN: That's not the foundation of Mardi Gras - it's not throwing all of this plastic (laughter). Like, the foundation is, like, the community coming together, experiencing joy despite whatever is going on in the world.
HAWKINS: Residents like Chris Pomfret in Algiers Point agree. And he loves the idea that the glass that they recycle may end up as beads at a parade.
POMFRET: There's nothing more quintessential than that for New Orleans.
HAWKINS: The idea of a more eco-friendly Mardi Gras is gaining momentum, with more krewes moving away from plastic beads to glass ones. It's also, in a way, a return to tradition. Back in the 1950s, all Mardi Gras beads were glass.
For NPR News, I'm Drew Hawkins in New Orleans.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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