ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that while Mardi Gras beads are likely to be a landfill nightmare that far more of the beads stay above ground than 2" suggested by the Groh's Verdi Gras organization. To develop effective recycling and reuse programs demands a better understanding of the life cycle of a Mardi Gras bead. The chapter suspects that the bead throwing may have received a corporate nudge. Pictured prominently in the Chicago parades are floats sponsored by Anheuser-Bush, which leads us to another transmission vector of bead bleed-alcohol companies. It wasn't that those in support of having Mardi Gras were callous; the heart of their argument was that if the city lost something so central to its self-identity as Mardi Gras, then there was little hope of successful rebuilding. Sometimes in a society, change means an intentional return to an older set of practices through the evoking of tradition which is called as revitalization.
