Ten years of CHaRM: Recycling center marks milestone with two locations and a third on the way

The Center for Hard to Recycle Materials – or CHaRM – is marking its 10th anniversary with a series of events at its DeKalb location and news of a third location coming to the Westside of Atlanta.

Managed by local environmental nonprofit Live Thrive, CHaRM was the brainchild of executive director Peggy Whitlow Ratcliffe after her parents passed away and she was tasked with cleaning out their home.

“My parents were gardeners and they had old pesticides and herbicides and there was nowhere to recycle them,” Ratcliffe recalled. “So, CHaRM started as a personal need and became a passion.”

The original Grant Park location opened a decade ago and collected more than six million pounds of hard-to-recycle materials, including plastics, paint, chemicals, cardboard, appliances, and more.

Nearly one year ago, the DeKalb location opened on Columbia Drive in Decatur and has already proven to be popular with residents. Ratcliffe said plastics have been the most collected item, with more than 107,000 pounds collected since the center opened last June.

“Decatur folks are so dedicated to their recycling,” Ratcliffe said. “We get more plastic than anything else. Styrofoam,  grocery bags, plastic straws, and utensils all get separated and recycled here.”

CHaRM DeKalb is also an educational destination with more than 400 third to fifth-graders, as well as summer camp kids, visiting so far to learn more about recycling.

There was concern that the Decatur location would drain away recyclers from Grant Park, but Ratcliffe said that never materialized with more than 5,000 residents bringing items in 2024. 

Buckhead residents might remember that CHaRM was hosting a regular pop-up partially funded by the Atlanta City Council. The pop-up fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

However, Ratcliffe said Live Thrive is working in partnership with the City of Atlanta to open a third location of CHaRM near the redevelopment of the Bowen Homes site on the Westside. She said funding was obtained before the Trump Administration began freezing and slashing grants.

Ratcliffe acknowledged that the next four years would be challenging, but said Live Thrive would be counting on recycling fees from residents, local grants and corporate sponsorships to keep the program alive. 

As part of the 10th-anniversary celebration and to mark Earth Day, CHaRm DeKalb is hosting a series of events, including a free kids’ day on April 26 at 9 a.m.featuring interactive and educational activities.

A plastic collection contest is also set to take place at local schools in the three weeks leading up to Earth Day on April 22. Live Thrive will pick up all collected plastic from each school and take it to a CHaRM location for weighing and proper recycling. The class or school with the highest weight of plastic collected will receive a cash prize toward its STE(A)M and environmental education.

Student artists in grades K-8 are also encouraged to enter the annual Earth Day t-shirt contest. More details can be found at livethrive.org/t-shirt-contest.

And the CHaRM Corporate Challenge will mark its fifth year, which encourages local corporations and their employees to recycle. Over the last four years, the challenge has collected 480,000 pounds of material, Ratcliffe said.

Companies can register on the Live Thrive website, and throughout the challenge, each drop-off will be weighed and recorded, so the total number of pounds diverted can be determined. Current 2025 Corporate Challenge participants include Chick-fil-A, Coca-Cola Bottling Company United Inc., Cox Enterprises Inc., Delta Air Lines, EY, Interface, Monarch Private Capital, Novelis, Oldcastle Infrastructure, Printpack, and The Home Depot Foundation.

For more information on any of the events and to find out more about recyclables accepted at the CHaRM facilities, visit livethrive.org.