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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. Visiting New Orleans during Marty

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Speaker 1: Gras is certainly on my list. The food is amazing,

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Speaker 1: and by all accounts, the costumes are dazzling, the energy exciting,

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Speaker 1: and the music phenomenal. And of course there are those colorful,

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Speaker 1: exactly gaudy enough beads, tons and tons of beads. People

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Speaker 1: throw them a passers by and tossed them from the

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Speaker 1: elaborate parade floats to be worn and treasured as souvenirs.

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Speaker 1: The beads are as much a hallmark of Marty Gras

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Speaker 1: as the Kingcake, also known as throws. They've been around

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Speaker 1: since the nineteen twenties. That's wheen a few of the

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Speaker 1: crews the groups that planned the celebrations parades started handing

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Speaker 1: glass beads out to parade goers lining the streets. But

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Speaker 1: these festive beads have caused quite a severe headache for

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Speaker 1: the city's public works department. Since September, workers have been

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Speaker 1: painstakingly cleaning tons of discarded Marty Gras beads from the

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Speaker 1: city's catch basins. In fact, they've sucked out some than

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Speaker 1: pounds that's forty six tons or forty two metric tons

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Speaker 1: along just a five blocks stretch of the popular downtown

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Speaker 1: parade route on St. Charles Avenue. Private contractors working under

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Speaker 1: a seven million dollar grant have collected nearly seven point

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Speaker 1: two million pounds that's three thousand, two hundred and sixty

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Speaker 1: five metric tons of debris from fifteen thousand of the

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Speaker 1: city's sixty eight thousand catch basins. The money is part

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Speaker 1: of a twenty two million dollar emergency project by the

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Speaker 1: city's Department of Public Works designed not only to clean

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Speaker 1: but also fixed the city's damaged basins. Nearly twenty four

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Speaker 1: vacuum trucks started cleaning them after widespread flooding last summer.

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Speaker 1: Marty Gras will be in full swing in the weeks

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Speaker 1: leading up to Fat Tuesday, which falls on February eighteen,

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Speaker 1: and the city is hoping residents and visitors will help

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Speaker 1: prevent beads and other debris from clogging the drains. To

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Speaker 1: that end, the city has been teaching people how to

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Speaker 1: clean the catch basins in their own neighborhoods, and city

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Speaker 1: workers are also considering covering the basins with so called

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Speaker 1: gutter buddies. At least until Marty Grazo. For these are

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Speaker 1: filters that look a bit like pool noodles and are

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Speaker 1: made with synthetic fibers woven to allow water to flow

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Speaker 1: straight through, but to catch sediment and debris. And since

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Speaker 1: they're washable and reasonable, they might be a wise investment

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Speaker 1: for future years. So, as they say in New Orleans,

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Speaker 1: laze le bon or let the good times roll. Just

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Speaker 1: don't let those Marti grab aids roll down the city's drains.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by John Partano and produced by

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Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other

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Speaker 1: festive topics, visit our home planet, how stuff works dot

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Speaker 1: com