Right now, the algae beads are pricey at $5 per necklace. Plastic necklaces, when bought in bulk, can cost pennies. More: What postponing Mardi Gras parades means for those who sell throws.

Lucky spectators at the 2022 Freret or Tucks parades could catch one of the rarest Carnival throws ever. At long last, biodegradable beads, containing plastic made from algae in an LSU laboratory ...

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— As parades ramp up this week, you may want to pay extra attention to some very special beads you can catch. An LSU professor invented a new kind of Mardi Gras bead that’s ...

In the second and third, which contain Great Lakes green and blue-green algae, the beads settled at the bottom. That's a problem for the environment, Gopalakrishnan said.

Come May, Milton's beads will be packaged in Louisiana and sold through an online market at a higher price, 93 cents to $2 per necklace, than the average plastic bead but less than Kato's algae ...

LSU Biology Professor Dr. Naohiro Kato is hoping to make Mardi Gras more eco-friendly with his new bead creations molded from micro-algae using the algae’s oils.

They made 500 beads, but only 320 beads will be thrown at the parades this year. Being from Japan, Dr. Kato is happy to make an impact on such a world-wide cultural phenomenon as Mardi Gras.