In New Orleans’s French Quarter, it seemed nothing could ever stanch the morning-after party scent permeating from its famed Bourbon Street — especially during Mardi Gras.

“There’s a whole bunch of beer spilled and liquor and whatever else, and when the sun comes up…it all ferments,” says Leonce Collins, a 10-year French Quarter resident and local tour guide. “When I’ve taken tourists out, I was almost ashamed.”

But this year, Mr. Collins and others hope, things may be different when Carnival revelry officially ceases at midnight.

Since January, responsibility for trash collection and street cleaning in the French Quarter has been in the hands of Sidney Torres IV, a local real-estate entrepreneur. In a few short months, 31-year-old Mr. Torres and his new company, SDT Waste & Debris Services LLC, under new guidelines from the city, have attempted to clean up the image of waste removal in the historic neighborhood.

Instead of just flushing streets with water, Mr. Torres is testing new scents such as lemon or eucalyptus to reduce the squalid odor. The company’s giant flusher and sweeper trucks are painted in an unusual black-and-white style. And there’s a cadre of lime-green sidewalk and gutter sweepers that resemble snow mobiles. All trucks are scrubbed by hand each night so they hit the streets the next day spotless. And Mr. Torres has started outfitting them with global-positioning systems for better scheduling. He says he also is building a $3 million facility to house a mechanic shop as well as a $300,000 automated car wash.

Mr. Torres sees his waste work in the French Quarter as a high-profile stepping stone to other parts of Louisiana and the country, such as Atlanta.

Since December, he has spent about $60,000 to $70,000 in TV advertising to try to woo more lucrative commercial accounts and other municipalities. To date, he has about 4,000 commercial accounts in New Orleans and surrounding parishes and expects revenue of $25 million to $30 million in 2007.

He also has hired local musicians to give testimonials for his ads, including jazz trombonist Troy Andrews, a.k.a. Trombone Shorty. “I live in the French Quarter,” Mr. Andrews says, “and when I wake up from taking a nap and all hours of the day you see these people cleaning up, and it’s a beautiful thing.”

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