Mardi Gras beads cause environmental hangover

[ellisonz]

Mardi Gras reveler Mike Turpin, whose night still isn't over, reacts as a front loader scoops up beads and other debris on Bourbon Street last year. Concerned over the estimated 25 million pounds of plastic beads that make their way to New Orleans each year, which can't be processed by traditional recycling centers, a few nonprofits are running programs that collect, bundle and resell them. (Patrick Semansky, Associated Press / February 15, 2012)

Some green-thinking locals want New Orleans to recycle the tons of plastic necklaces that go flying during parades. But skeptics say it'll never happen.
By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times
February 15, 2012, 6:11 p.m.

Reporting from New Orleans—
The beads were flying all around them, some pooling in the street, some caught by revelers and cherished for a moment — most of them destined, in all likelihood, for the landfill.

It was Mardi Gras 2011, and Kirk and Holly Groh were stationed in their family's traditional viewing spot downtown, where they had watched so many parades roll by in years past.

This time, they kept thinking what a waste it was.

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mardi-gras-beads-20120216,0,1959252.story

[WingDinger]

1. Yeah, but the puke keeps them stuck together.

I worked around plastic injection, and the guys that would split bags, spilling plastic beads, wouldnt sweep them up.

They float, so when rain comes, they go to the ocean. Fish swallow them, and they sit in their stomachs, till the fish dies of hunger. As it's filled up with inert materials.

Sometimes humans suck.

[DonCoquixote]

2. odd idea

could they make the beads out of candy? That would at least rot.

[ellisonz]

3. interesting idea

but some would call it just another government mandate.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. What we need are sensible bead control laws and a bead registry

No more person-to-person bead sales and if we have to sue Big bead out of business I say, "go for it." It's past time to hold bead manufacturers accountable for the havoc they unleash. I, for one, have declared my home a bead-free zone.

Stop staring at me with your beady little eyes.

[ellisonz]

5. And with the mature response...

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. whaaa -- ?

Surely nobody needs beads. They're a pointless frivolity, right? And certainly there is no constitutionally to keep and bear beads. Since the OP says they are an envirnmental hazard that makes them a threat to health and safety.

So what's wrong with what I said?

[ellisonz]

8. Just...

[KamaAina]

7. Years ago, they were made from glass

in the former Czechoslovakia.

I'd think that krewes (the semi-secret societies that run the parades) could start moving in that direction. Glass beads could become a signature throw, like Zulu's coconuts or Muses' hand-decorated shoes.

[ellisonz]

9. Then we would just have a bunch of drunk people with little cuts all over their...

...soon to be infected bodies. I like the candy idea.

[KamaAina]

11. You should check out Mardi Gras in Mobile, then

it's even older than New Orleans'. In Mobile, the throws include Moon Pies!

And I doubt that there were legions of drunk, cut-up New Orleanians before plastic beads. As I understand it, the glass beads were roughly equivalent to small marbles.

[ellisonz]

12. I guess it must have been...

...an effective deterrent.

[Sgent]

13. Glass isn't much better

it can't be effectively recycled either. However, there tend to be many fewer of them thrown.

That said, glass beads are mostly banned from mardi gras in New Orleans since they can injure people (one exception -- if they are handed out rather than thrown).

I'd like to see the krewes go "back to basics" at least somewhat. Since the Superkrewes came to fruition in the 70's bead count has been more and more important. I'd like to see fewer beads and better / nicer beads or other throws that might actually be kept as souvenirs.

[Obamanaut]

10. Beads are more or less seasonal. A daily blight on the environment is cigarette filters. These

are not biodegradable in the normal sense, but take many years to decompose.

Just as beads show up in the digestive systems of birds and fish, so do cigarette butts.

One estimate is from a pack of 20 cigarettes, as many as five butts will find their way into the environment, just from casual 'flicking.'

Here's one of many links describing the hazards to the environment posed by these little bits of cellulose.

http://www.cigarettelitter.org/index.asp?PageName=Facts

There are more.