For the past few years, Alma Robichaux has been searching for ways to make Louisiana’s festivals and Mardi Gras season parades less threatening to the environment. She wants to keep the tradition but leave the plastic in the past. That means eliminating, or at least curtailing, some of the thousands of cheap, China-produced plastic throws that rain down on the streets during a typical Carnival. In their place would be locally made products fashioned from sustainable material such as wood.
Now almost $500,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will help her dream into a reality for three festivals over the next two years. The grant lets Robichaux, an outreach coordinator for the Thibodaux-based Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, work with Houma’s Rougarou Fest and New Orleans’ French Quarter Festival and Satchmo SummerFest to reduce their plastic waste.
The French Quarter Festival alone can attract more than 800,000 people, and Robichaux hopes to divert 80% of its waste away from the landfill and into compost and recycling bins. About $30,000 of the grant money will go toward replacing some of items thrown during Rougarou Fest’s Halloween-themed parade with wooden tokens that would be redeemable at the event’s vendor booths if permitted by Houma’s town council. The tokens could be made closer to home, possibly offering a way to keep Louisiana dollars from going overseas.