On-the-Route Stations
Bright purple-green-gold recycling stations staffed by volunteers along every major Uptown and CBD parade route. Beads, bottles, cans — separated, weighed, hauled. Drop your throws on the way to the next float; we take it from there.
Each station has a flag-banner, tent, recycling bins, throw donation bins, and a crew of our team ready to help! They go up two hours before parade and wrap up around sundown.
Recycling Rewards
A sweepstakes & leaderboard that rewards the parade-goers who actually do the work. Turn in beads, bottles, or cans at any RecycleDAT station and get entered to win.
a glimpse of the prize lineup
▸ 30+ prizes up for grabs · drawn through carnival season · winners announced after each weekend
Recyclists Marching Krewe
Since 2019, a group of upstanding, environmentally-focused locals has hit the streets of the Marigny and French Quarter parading as the first-ever interactive recycling marching krewe.
Decked out in eco-pun costumes, they flip the script on parading by collecting waste as they pass instead of producing it. Riding unique shopping-cart / bike hybrids, the "Re-Cyclists" (formerly known as the Trashformers) encourage parade-goers to drink up and hand over their aluminum cans and plastic bottles.
The "Marching Krewe with a Job to Do" typically diverts up to 750 gallons of recyclable material per outing. They march again in 2026 — and they're aiming much higher.
Interested in joining? Let us know and we'll send you more details!
Get in touch →Press
▸ marching again · 2026 · marigny + french quarter route
Can & Bottle Sweep
Following select parades, a crew with rolling bins, pickers, and box trucks sweeps a section of the parade route to capture discarded aluminum cans and plastic and glass bottles — before the city sanitation clean-up.
It's a narrow window. We get maybe ninety minutes between the last float and the street-sweeper. In that window we can pull thousands of recyclables off the neutral ground that would otherwise go straight to the landfill.
Hotel Throw Recycling
Suitcase too full to fit all those throws? Look out for bead donation bins placed in the lobbies of partner hotels across the French Quarter and CBD. Guests drop their beads on checkout. We collect, weigh, and route everything to non-profit partners for repackaging, resale, and reuse in a future Mardi Gras.
If you're interested in getting a throw collection bin for your hotel, reach out to us at hello@recycledat.org.
In the lobbies
Raise the Bar
A partnership between RecycleDAT, Glass Half Full, and Every Can Counts U.S. to provide free glass and aluminum recycling during Carnival season to bars and restaurants in the heart of the action.
Glass Half Full will crush the influx of parade-season glass right here in New Orleans, turning it into sustainable sand for coastal restoration projects. Collected aluminum beverage cans will be recycled locally — kept out of landfills so they can be turned into new cans in as little as 60 days.