With the city in a continual state of crisis, from debatable evacuation planning to an inability to fulfill basic sanitation necessities, New Orleans has had a tough time. But we at Big Easy Magazine are here to help out the city and maybe the mayor, if she’s not too busy getting into bar brawls. We present to you the Top Ten things to do with your trash. *Note that some ideas are definitely “better” than others.
- Set it on fire. This is an old remedy people in more rural areas use, and if it works there, why not here? What’s the worst that could happen? (Oops. See Great New Orleans Fire of 1788) (See Great New Orleans Fire of 1794)
- Cure for COVID. Bag kitchen garbage and let sit in sun a minimum of two weeks. Combine listeria, botulinum, and e-coli in blender and whip to a green froth. Drink. It will not only prevent and cure COVID, it will cure your worms of worms.
- Compress the heavier items and use as September Sandbags for the next hurricane, which should be here any fucking day now.
- Build a Mardi Gras float. Since Mardi Gras keeps getting canceled and the float business is suffering, this is really a win for everyone. Get float companies involved, get citizens involved, and turn that horrible trash into treasure. Picture the Head of Ida as a spoiled-meat-stink freezer, her mouth a swinging door. Hell, we can start a whole new organization for it, the Krewe de Screw You.
- Build a boat. We’re going to need it when the next hurricane strikes and we’re once again unable to properly evacuate the city. Yo ho ho and a bottle of Old New Orleans Amber Rum, amirite?
- Build play forts. Kids love forts. Kids are germ factories. Why not combine the two?
- Sponsored by Tropical Isle, the Trash Olympics! Make an obstacle course of broken glass. Create mountains of crawfish tails that have to be scaled. Fun for the whole family!
- Bring it to Bourbon Street. (Shhhh. Nobody will notice.)
- Scavenger hunt. Can you find these specific things? Item 1) 3 used condoms in a pothole…
- Pay the fucking hoppers a living wage and get them to pick it up. Seriously. In New Orleans, no one should be making anything less than $15 an hour, and if we can’t pay people in one of the top five most hazardous fields a semi-living wage, then maybe we don’t deserve to have it picked up.
Bonus 11. Start another fucking New Orleans reality TV show about it because we don’t have enough of those. We’ll call it “Trash or Treasure.” People on reality TV will share their trash with other people and see if there’s something worth exchanging. This could work great for bicycle parts. Less so for rotten bananas.
Bonus 12. Set that shit on fire. Yeah, I know we said that already, and now I’m just going to repeat myself, because I can.
