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Live Thrive's Centers for Hard to Recycle Materials

The Centers for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM) facilities are a premier program of the nonprofit, Live Thrive. Live Thrive’s CHaRM locations are Atlanta’s only permanent facilities where residents and businesses can drop off household hazardous waste and other materials not accepted at the curb. Live Thrive’s goal is to divert materials from Atlanta’s water systems and landfills. The organization works with processors and nonprofit partners to ensure materials collected are properly reused, recycled, and reengineered. Both CHaRM locations also accept sorted single-stream items for those who do not have access. All operations expenses for the CHaRM facilities are paid from grants, sponsorships, donations and recycling fees.

Two convenient locations in Atlanta and Decatur, open by appointment only:

CHaRM Atlanta: Tuesdays, Thursdays 9am-2pm and Saturdays 8am-2pm

CHaRM DeKalb: Wednesdays 9am-2pm and Saturdays 8am-2pm

Appointments are required to help track statistics for funding purposes.

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Live Thrive's Centers for Hard to Recycle Materials

The Centers for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM) facility is a premier program of the nonprofit, Live Thrive. With two permanent drop-off facilities that aim to improve our environmental health by encouraging reuse and diverting thousands of pounds of household hazardous waste and other hard-to-recycle items from Metro-Atlanta landfills and water systems. Both CHaRM locations also accept sorted single-stream items for those who do not have access. All operations expenses for the CHaRM facilities are paid from grants, sponsorships, donations and recycling fees.

4,317,000 lbs of Recycled Materials in 2021!

Live Thrive’s CHaRM facility’s intake increased more than 60% over 2020!

In 2021 alone, we recycled 31 tons of styrofoam, 274 tons of chemicals, 251 tons of glass, 1,727 mattresses and much more, for a total of 2,185 tons of recycled materials during the year.

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Georgia now has the second largest infrastructure for end-use recyclable materials (or recyclables) in the nation

– Gloria Hardegree, Executive Director
Georgia Recycling Coalition

Georgia is considered the carpeting capital. One third of all plastic beverage containers in North America are recycled in Georgia and are used to manufacture new carpeting.

What Happens to Your Waste?

In Georgia, recycling industries add over 3 billion dollars in value to the materials that they process, employing over 23,000 Georgians. Nationally, achieving a recycling rate of 75 percent would create and sustain nearly 1.5 million by 2030.

– Blue Green Alliance, 2014

HDPE (plastic #2) is recycled into a variety of new products, including rope, lumber, plastic furniture and interestingly, recycling and trash containers!

What Happens to your Waste?

About Live Thrive

Live Thrive is an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization working since 2010 to create a community that cares about a healthy and sustainable environment. We started as a blog sharing sustainable efforts of individuals, communities and local businesses large and small.

To fulfill our mission, Live Thrive organized the city of Atlanta’s first household hazardous waste collection in September 2010. Attendance was well over 1000+, diverting more than 75,000 pounds of waste from our water system and landfills. Over the next four years, Live Thrive organized nine additional events. Through these events, we realized the need for a permanent drop-off facility for these hard-to-recycle materials, and CHaRM was created.

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Educational Programs

How do we teach our children to conserve and preserve? Simple answer—start early and lead by example! Live Thrive is working to bring environmental education to all levels through the CHaRM facility.

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Latest News

Fundraiser Tickets On Sale Now

Aug 16, 2026

A CHaRM’ing Evening Tickets On Sale NOW This year’s A CHaRM’ing Evening will take place on Thursday, Oct. 22 at The Stave Room and features an exclusive, intimate performance by Yacht Rock Revue, the nationally touring Atlanta band known for smooth ‘70s and ‘80s hits....