New Orleans’ drainage system consists of more than 70,000 catch basins that collect and redirect surface-level water into underground drainage pipes and canals, where water is eventually evacuated beyond the levee system by pumping stations. Due to its coastal placement at the base of the Mississippi River, New Orleans’ elevation is at sea level, with much of the city below sea level due to decades of subsidence. The city’s low elevation, its adjacency to water (the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Gulf of Mexico), and its predisposition to intense rainfall make fast and unobstructed stormwater drainage a necessity for its resilience in the face of worsening climate change.

Street pollution is a known source of neighborhood blight and escaped trash in the environment, also impacting New Orleans' tourism and community quality of life. Less documented is the relationship between errant waste and flood-related resilience. While there is ample news coverage of myriad Mardi Gras beads recovered from catch basins along parade routes, the city lacks any data on the composition of contents embedded in its complex and oftentimes compromised drainage system writ large.

This preliminary study examines the contents within 15 catch basins across the city. Through content retrieval and analysis, this study documents the respective waste compositions, types, industries, and brand names (when possible) as well as waste volume and weight by category. Catch basin contents are analyzed alongside census tract data, tree canopy coverage, and proximate businesses to deduce variables of significance linked to drainage obstruction, waste abundance, and waste composition. Findings from this study inform potential waste reduction and waste diversion policies, programs, and infrastructures that the city can initiate to mitigate local flood risk while providing other city-wide co-benefits.