A major Mardi Gras parade bans plastic beads in 2025. 'It's time for a change.' (2024)

'Throw me somethin’ mister' has long been a Carnival-time mantra in New Orleans, as parade-goers vie for glinting plastic necklaces tossed from passing floats. But in recent years there’s also been increasing discontent with the enormous amount of plastic thrown during Mardi Gras and the ecological effect it has in a flood-prone city.

On Tuesday, the 13-year-old Krewe of Freret unveiled a strategy to reduce the bead deluge.

Starting next year, riders will no longer be permitted to throw plastic beads. Krewe leaders estimate the change will eliminate more than 200,000 strands of beads from New Orleans' trees, storm drains and, ultimately, landfills each year, or 2 million strands over the next decade.

In addition to the beads, the plan will eliminate thousands of single-use plastic bags that wrap the beads from what the krewe calls “the vulnerable New Orleans ecosystem.”

The way things are trending

“This is something we’ve been thinking about for some time,” said Freret Captain Bobby Hjortsberg. In fact, he said, ecological consciousness has been part of the krewe's internal conversation since it's first parade in 2013.

Hjortsberg said that increasingly Freret riders have advocated for a reduction in beads and an increase in sustainable throws. The winter rainstorm that flooded the streets during this year’s parade, Hjortsberg said, confirmed the need for change, since beads are reputed to stop up drains.

“This is the way things are trending,’ he said, adding that during the annual ride he hasn’t thrown beads “in a long time.”

The magic of tossing and catching necklaces seems to be fading, Hjortsberg said. “One of the best things about riding in a parade are the very short but important connections you make with people when you throw something,” he said. Beads simply aren’t as highly sought after as they once were.

For one krewe to eliminate beads may not make a huge dent in the quantity. “We’re a big parade, but we’re a tiny part of the big picture.”

Nonetheless, Hjortsberg said he hopes that Freret’s watershed announcement leads to “something bigger than just us.” He was quick to add that the decision to eliminate beads isn’t meant as a criticism of other parade practices.

“I know that everybody’s got to do what’s right for their krewe,” he said. “This is what’s right for us.”

“We’re not saying you’re bad if you don’t do it,” Hjortsberg said.

An opportunity for creativity

Longtime Carnival chronicler Arthur Hardy said that Freret has struck first, but the krewe is part of “a growing movement to diminish plastic.”

But, he said, “We’ll never get rid of it entirely, because plastic items cost less than whatever they’ll be replaced by.”

Hardy points out that a handful of krewes have made it their mission to emphasize reusable items. It could be “a matter of supply and demand.” Maybe, he said, “people just don’t want this cheap plastic stuff.”

Hardy said that he hopes Carnival participants see the shift away from beads as “an opportunity to be creative and be entrepreneurs.” He points out that in the 1960s, doubloons were a new invention that became a Carnival phenomenon overnight.

In lieu of necklaces, Freret will emphasize reusable, consumable, and handmade items, including Freret-branded hats, fanny packs, sunglasses, collapsible dog bowls, coloring books, tote bags, wooden doubloons, and the krewe’s signature hand-decorated masks.

Time for change

In keeping with Freret’s pop music theme, the krewe has called on burlesque rapper Boyfriend — the model for one of the parade's floats — to lead the krewe's ecological program as a "sustainability adviser."

“It's time for change, and I'm proud to deepen this critical partnership with my krewe to make a lasting impact," Boyfriend said in a statement.

This year's Freret parade carried 1,000 women and men aboard 15 floats, including signature floats with designs that paid tribute to musicians Trombone Shorty, Dr. John and Juvenile. The 2025 parade is scheduled to roll on Feb. 22, the first Saturday of the parading season.

Plastic beads used as Carnival throws entered the market in the early 1950s in New Orleans, in competition with glass beads from Czechoslovakia, Japan and elsewhere. Twenty years later, glass beads had been largely eliminated, replaced with less expensive, more durable plastic necklaces from Hong Kong, then elsewhere in the People’s Republic of China.

The size of the plastic pearls, the length of strands, and the quantities of necklaces thrown increased over the next several decades.

In 2018, an industrial vacuum machine sucked 46 tons of plastic beads from the catch basins along a five-block stretch of the St. Charles Avenue parade route, where Freret travels.