The store offers an extensive Mardi Gras inventory including "all types of beads, trinkets, T-shirts and other items" for decoration and parade floats.

Cheap plastic beads often end up in landfills and can clog up the city’s 100-year-old drainage system. That’s led to more calls to ditch them altogether.

New Orleans and Mobile dispute where Mardi Gras was birthed, but both Gulf Coast cities struggle with the same plastic waste. How can they design a greener carnival?

Mardi Gras can make a lot of trash, adding up to millions of pounds each year. Now, some parades in New Orleans are cutting down on their environmental footprint by banning plastic beads.

New Orleans and Mobile dispute where Mardi Gras was birthed, but both Gulf Coast cities struggle with the same plastic waste. Where will a greener Carnival be reborn?

Pensacola's Mardi Gras celebrations have been met with exuberance since they got rolling in 1900, but keeping traditions alive has been intentional.

The beads around Thomas's neck were part of the Mardi Gras' fun and still are but now mother and son, both scientists, have researched how those beads can have risks.

So far, 50 bins have been filled with throws and beads that will be used again for Mardi Gras 2025.

This is an excerpt from the book “Mardi Gras Beads,” by Doug MacCash, part of LSU Press’ series “Louisiana True." By the late 1800s, the tossing of trinkets was already an established part ...

So lusted after in the moment, Mardi Gras beads have a cruel afterlife. The lucky ones find a useful purpose long after the parades stop: decorating a fence, maybe, or as an eye-catching art ...

The stringed beads, often sourced from China, can contain lead, heavy metals and other materials that can be toxic to humans, particularly children.