In response to local recycling companies increasingly rejecting glass materials for recycling, Atlanta City Councilmember Carla Smith is encouraging city residents to take their glass items to The Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM), a city-supported recycling facility located at 1110 Hill St. SE.
CHaRM is open (except holidays) on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. and on Saturdays from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. and will accept glass bottles and food grade glass jars.
It is a permanent drop-off facility that aims to improve environmental health by encouraging reuse and diverting thousands of pounds of household hazardous waste, bulky trash and other hard to recycle items from metro Atlanta landfills and water systems.
Created through leglislation drafted by Smith and fellow councilmember Alex Wan, CHaRM’s benefit to residents is that it accepts a wider range of items than typical curbside recycling.
“It’s important that we do our part to free our landfills of non-biodegradable waste,” Smith said. “A growing number of recyclers in metro Atlanta are refusing to recycle glass to cut costs and opting to take the material to local landfills and that’s greatly disappointing.”
Smith said while recycling properly does cost money, Live Thrive Atlanta, which runs the nonprofit CHaRM, does welcome donations to continue its environmental mission.
While there has been coverage in the local media that local recyclers are rejecting glass and sending it on to landfills, that is not the case at CHaRM, according to executive director Peggy Whitlow Ratcliffe.
“Strategic Materials, located in southwest Atlanta, is our processor and is happy to support CHaRM,” said Ratcliffe, “We are already bringing additional containers to the center to receive Atlanta’s glass recyclables.”
Recyclers have cited increased costs for sorting mixed recyclables and have opted for a less environmentally friendly route. According to reports, recycling companies don’t want the extra cost and hassle of separating glass from other recyclables, so are sending it on to landfills.
A complete list of the wide-range of items that CHaRM will accept can be found at livethrive.org/charm/items-accepted/.
CHaRM will hold its its inaugural fundraiser, A CHaRM’ing Evening, on Thursday, March, 10, at Piedmont Park’s Greystone building. Yacht Rock Review will perform and there will be fare and cocktails from Atlanta restaurants. Leading up to and during the event, CHaRM will sell raffle tickets to win a 2016 BMW i3 electric car from Global Imports. Raffle tickets are $100 each, while event tickets are $50 per person and available at livethrive.org.