ATLANTA — Do you have items in your house you really want to get rid of, but don't want them to end up in the dump? It's a problem in north Georgia that's all too common: recycling companies only take limited types of plastics, cardboard and aluminum cans.
Most do not accept glass, thin plastics, and other household materials.
CHaRM, the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials, was founded out of this problem.
Executive Director Peggy Whitlow Ratcliffe was frustrated she didn't have a place to safely dispose of or recycle household cleaners. Fast forward to present-day, and CHaRM helped keep over 4,371,000 pounds of material out of landfills in 2021!
The drive-through recycling center has 14 different drop-off stations to bring a new purpose or life to glass bottles, styrofoam, old bikes, thin plastics and plastic straws, metal, CFL and fluorescent lightbulbs and even cigarette butts. It’s a one-stop shop.
They opened in 2015 and served 5,000 people that first year. In 2021, they served 62,000 residents.
Once the pandemic began, they had to do by-appointment-only recycling. Through that, they were able to gather more statistics not only on where people were coming from to recycle, but what materials they needed to drop off. They found there is a huge need all over the city for more centers like CHaRM.
They’ll be expanding from their current rented land plot in southeast Atlanta's Chosewood Park neighborhood and will be opening a new facility on a three-acre lot in Dekalb County by the end of 2022.
You may be thinking... "Okay, so can I bring just anything and will they take it?" Not exactly.
Used pillows, undergarments, and PPP are not accepted, along with a handful of other items. There's also been a few more strange drop-offs that Whitlow Ratcliffe has been witness to in recent years. Among the "strangest" of the drop-off recyclables: a hand grenade (immediate 911 bomb squad call), a box of old used adult toys and mattresses that donors admit someone perished on.
"We get a lot of 'wish-cyclers' that bring things that really just cannot be recycled… Hopefully we can educated people that that’s the only thing that can’t be recycled and other things in there home can be," Whitlow Ratcliffe said.
There are some recycling processes that happen on site.
They have a giant styrofoam compression machine that Chick-fil-A helped pay for. About 95% of Styrofoam is air. So this machine breaks it down, crushes it up, then compacts it. It’s then sent to Dow Chemicals and is turned into tiles of roof insulation.
They also partner with big sporting event locations in Atlanta and have all of the styrofoam sent to CHaRM. Thirty-two tons of Styrofoam were collected at CHaRM in 2021.
Another on-site repurposing takes place with CFL and fluorescent tubes. Many people may not know that when they break, mercury powder goes everywhere. Their CFL machine, which cost $6,000, takes in the lightbulbs, breaks them and is able to vacuum the mercury powder into a bag. That bag is sent to a manufacturer called Air Cycle that uses the mercury powder to make new lightbulbs.
Much of what is brought to CHaRM’s facility is sent to other nonprofits for repurposing. The Gift of Music foundation collects used instruments and refurbishes them to be put back into the hands of young school children. Bicycles are taken by Sopo Bike Coop in Atlanta, which refurbishes around 80 to 85 percent of them. Some are sold into new loving homes, others are given to refugees or the experiencing homelessness. For Christmas last year through bikes collected at CHaRM, 175 refurbished bicycles were given to children in need in Atlanta.
A large portion of what is collected is given to businesses for remanufacturing.
"Georgia is No. 2 in the nation for remanufacturing recycled materials, which just astonished me because we have such a hard time recycling," Whitlow Ratcliffe said. "However, these 120 manufacturers depend on all of this material to remake new materials… aluminum cans, cardboard boxes, actually the glass is recyclable right here in our own state. So it’s really important not just for the earth, which is obvious, but to also provide jobs and stimulate the economy"
In 2021 alone, the center reused/recycled/reengineered more than 31 tons of styrofoam, 274 tons of chemicals, 251 tons of glass, 1,727 mattresses and much more for a total of 4,371,000 pounds of materials.
If you want to drop off your hard to recycle materials, you can make an appointment at LiveThrive's website.