For the third year, Live Thrive’s Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM) hosted the CHaRM Corporate Challenge, an initiative encouraging Atlanta-based corporations to task their employees with a recycling competition. This year, the zero waste center took in 145,764 pounds of materials for reuse, redistribution and recycling during the 22 days of the challenge.

“We have been thrilled to see the Corporate Challenge grow each year,” said Peggy Whitlow Ratcliffe, executive director, Live Thrive, the nonprofit responsible for CHaRM. “This challenge is a collaborative competition where everyone truly wins, especially the community and the planet.”

This year’s Corporate Challenge partners included Accenture, Alston & Bird, Atlanta Hawks and State Farm Arena, Chick-fil-A, Cox Enterprises, Delta Air Lines, EY, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Interface, Monarch Private Capital, Novelis Inc., Oldcastle Infrastructure, A CRH Company and The Home Depot Foundation.

Launched in 2021, the CHaRM Corporate Challenge now coincides with Earth Month, allowing local corporations and companies to offer their employees the opportunity to participate by dropping off recycling at CHaRM from April 1-22. Each drop-off is weighed and recorded, so that each organization will have collection numbers for their company.

In 2021, the initiative collected 100,000 pounds, and in 2022, that increased to 120,000 pounds. Combined with this year’s figure, the Corporate Challenge has kept more than 365,000 pounds out of landfills and waterways in just three years. Of course, this is in addition to the materials collected at CHaRM throughout the year – in 2022 alone, that number was 5.7 million pounds.

Several Corporate Challenge partners, including Chick-fil-A, Delta Air Lines, Novelis Inc. and Oldcastle Infrastructure, A CRH Company partnered with CHaRM on Kids Day, also supported the on-site Earth Day celebration at CHaRM’s soon-to-open DeKalb location (1225 Columbia Drive, Decatur, Ga. 30032).

Kids Day included a competition too – the Plastic Bottle Collection Contest challenged schools in metro Atlanta to collect plastic bottles for a two-week period. The school or class with the highest weight collected was awarded a Captain Planet Foundation Learning Garden sponsored by Coca-Cola Bottling Company United, Inc. for their school. This year’s Learning Garden winner was St. Timothy School, which collected 110 pounds of plastic bottles. Additional cash prizes were awarded to STEM, STEAM and environmental groups.

“Earth Day comes around just once a year,” said Ratcliffe. “Our goal with initiatives like the Corporate Challenge, Kids Day and the Plastic Bottle Collection Contest is to keep the environment and the importance of recycling top of mind for all ages each of the other 364 days.”