Bill wants to make sure the parade mess is cleaned up

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – While many have been enjoying the Mardi Gras season parades and collecting a string of beads, a Louisiana lawmaker is proposing plans designed to ensure Mardi Gras remnants are cleaned up.

Once the parades roll in, however, there is often a full-scale cleanup of the beads, confetti, and debris left behind. State Assemblyman Foy Gadberry, R-West Monroe, has introduced HB23, which requires cities or towns to require organizations hosting parades to clean up litter within 24 hours.

As part of the bill, organizers would pay the city a bail to ensure the cleanup takes place. The city or municipality would create its own rules to specify methods of waste disposal, the amount of deposit to be paid, the extent to which the area should be cleaned, and create any type of punishment for organizations that fail to meet the specified requirements. One consequence could be that the city or municipality withholds the deposit money.

If passed, the law would leave some of the control and requirements to the government agency, but it would also require them to make the regulation under state law.

Though many cities already have clean-up plans in place, doing so would put more strain on the parade hosts than the city.

The bill will be debated in the regular session, which starts on April 10th.