Do You Recycle? Challenge Launches in Atlanta to Increase Recycling Participation and Quality of Recyclables from Multifamily Properties

ATLANTA  – With close to 1,500 multifamily properties representing approximately 140,000 households, Atlanta is a prime location for a pilot Challenge to increase recycling participation and improve the quality of recyclables being diverted from landfills. The Do You Recycle? Challenge, launched today by The Recycling Partnership, Live Thrive, Atlanta Housing, Livable Buckhead, Georgia Recycling Coalition, Atlanta Recycles, The Atlanta Apartment Association, and The City of Atlanta Office of Resilience, will aim to engage 100 multifamily buildings providing training and education over the next 12 months. The Do You Recycle? Challenge will scale the success of a pilot The Recycling Partnership conducted earlier this year with the Atlanta property portfolios of AMLI Residential and Gables Residential which reached nearly 5,000 residents across 10 buildings.

“As part of our three-year commitment to the City of Atlanta, funded in part by The Coca-Cola Foundation, The Recycling Partnership is excited to offer multifamily properties across the City resources that will keep valuable recyclables out of landfills while improving the quality of recyclables that can be used as feedstock for Georgia’s continuously-growing recycling industry,” said Cecilia Shutters, Community Program Manager, The Recycling Partnership. “Using our best-in-class education and outreach materials, property managers will work directly with local community partners to drive measurable change through the Do You Recycle? Challenge.” Participating properties will use a newly developed version of Zabble’s measurement app to track and measure progress.

Live Thrive, an Atlanta-based recycling non-profit organization, will serve as the community hub for the Do You Recycle? Challenge. Last year Live Thrive's Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM) diverted 1370 tons landfills, much from multifamily residents, making Live Thrive a natural fit to be the managing program partner for the Challenge. 

“Live Thrive is thrilled to be hosting the Do You Recycle? Challenge alongside The Recycling Partnership and the incredible group of change-making organizations who will work together to help multifamily properties do even more to make a positive impact for their communities, their city, and the planet,” said Peggy Whitlow Ratcliffe, Executive Director of Live Thrive.

To learn more about the Do You Recycle? Challenge, visit communitiesforrecycling.org/atlanta

About The Recycling Partnership

The Recycling Partnership is the action agent transforming the U.S. residential recycling system for good. Our team operates at every level of the recycling value chain and works on the ground with thousands of communities to transform underperforming recycling programs and tackle circular economy challenges. As the leading organization in the country that engages the full recycling supply chain, from working with companies to make their packaging more circular and help them meet climate and sustainability goals, to working with government to develop policy solutions to address the systemic needs of the U.S. recycling system, The Recycling Partnership positively impacts recycling at every step in the process. Since 2014, the nonprofit change agent diverted 375 million pounds of new recyclables from landfills, saved 968 million gallons of water, avoided more than 420,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases, and drove significant reductions in targeted contamination rates. Learn more at recyclingpartnership.org.