The Environmental Impact During Mardi Gras
What is Mardi Gras?
Mardi Gras originated as a Christian celebration held to mark the beginning of Lent. The French name Mardi Gras means ‘Fat Tuesday’, from the custom of using all the fats in the home before Lent in preparation for fasting and abstinence. Although worldly recognized, it is celebrated with different traditions depending on where you are. Some people designate the day to eating pancakes and others take partying to the extreme!
New Orleans, Louisiana holds a Mardi Gras festival that is particularly outrageous and eccentric. There it covers a one to a three-month stretch of the year in which the streets come alive with music, art, and costumed revellers. The Carnival season opens on Twelfth Night (Epiphany, January 6) and climaxes with the Mardi Gras festivities. This period is filled with elaborate parades, king cake and bead-tossing. The tradition of tossing beads from parade floats dates back to 1871, when the Twelfth Night Revellers began throwing doubloons and customized trinkets to the crowds along the route of their parade.
What do the Mardi Gras beads represent?
Still today, strings of plastic beads are distributed and thrown whilst there is an ongoing street party and carnival. The beads are often purple, green, and gold each representing power, faith, and justice.
How this festival affects the environment
Although this sounds like a wonderful event, unfortunately, there is great excess and as a result, much negativity and waste stems from it. Over 1 million strings of beads are thrown each year and as these materials are unrecyclable and not biodegradable, it is very damaging to our planet. Not only this but some of the chemicals in the beads contain certain toxic elements that end up in gutters, waterways, and landfills. This amount of plastic being thrown and left on the streets creates an abundance of waste with devastating and lasting effects on the environment.
As these typical plastic beads are low-cost and accessible to mass-produce it is tough to find an alternative that can compete. However, there are many companies trying to combat this wastage and plastic consumption. Environmentally aware groups have come up with alternative more sustainable items to throw, including beads made from paste, paper, clay, or wood and also jute bags filled with different local foods like coffee beans, rice mix, and red beans. Even scientists at the Louisiana University have begun developing beads made from algae. This natural material is far more environmentally friendly as well as being biodegradable!
Finding a better alternative
On Cerqular’s website, there are multiple brands acknowledging the excessive use of plastic in day-to-day life. Therefore, they are creating plastic alternatives or recycling rubbish in some very innovative and astounding ways.
A few brands worthy of mentioning are:
No Nonsense and Shade Athletics specialize in leisure and activewear creating stylish garments using recycled plastic fibers.
Zouri Shoes are a vegan footwear brand that uses plastic waste found on the beaches of Portugal, combining this with other sustainable materials to create the perfect pair of shoes!
Each brand is proving to have its own individual system helping to make the world a less wasteful place! Enjoy celebrating this wonderful day in whatever way you choose, just be conscious of all the happenings around you!