Good Day Atlanta viewer information: April 19, 2024

ATLANTA - Unique recycling center hosts Kids Day this weekend:

What do you do when you can’t find the kind of place you need? If you’re Peggy Whitlow Ratcliffe, you create it yourself.

"My parents passed away, and I needed a place to get rid of — or properly dispose of — all the materials they had in their home," she says. "From pesticides, herbicides ... to all of the clothing, old plastics. I needed a place to drop all of that off."

And that’s how Ratcliffe came to create nonprofit organization Live Thrive and its Center for Hard to Recycle Materials, otherwise known as CHaRM. The drop-off facility (located at 1110 Hill Street in Atlanta) accepts a long list of items — including Styrofoam, books, paint, chemicals, and more — which generally end up in landfills. CHaRM workers say more than 90% of items brought to their facility will be recycled, repurposed, or re-engineered; last year, they took in more than 5.7 million pounds of materials, including more than 250,000 pounds of Styrofoam and 4,000 mattresses.

In honor of Earth Day, Live Thrive and CHaRM will host a special Kids Day on Saturday at the site of its upcoming DeKalb County location. From 9 a.m. to noon, children and families can stop by the site (located at 1225 Columbia Drive in Decatur) to learn more about the importance of recycling through hands-on activities and on-site vendors. Leading up to tomorrow’s event, local students in metro Atlanta have been collecting plastic bottles as part of a Plastic Bottle Collection Contest, and winners of the contest will receive prizes during Kids Day.

For more information on CHaRM and to see a full list of the items accepted by the facility, click here.

National Wildlife Federation and West Atlanta Watershed Alliance: The organizations will be kicking off National Volunteer Week at the Urban Forest Festival by cleaning up the Cascades Springs Nature Preserve, a 135-acre preserve and one of the largest old forests inside Atlanta’s city limits. The cleanup is part of the Clean Earth Challenge, a nationwide effort hosted by the National Wildlife Federation and Johnson Outdoors with a goal of collecting 4 million pieces of trash, litter, and waste across the country during National Volunteer Week.

Spring grilling with Traeger: Elevate Your BBQ Game! . BBQ experts and pitmasters Wes Clark and Chad Ward give grilling tips and talk about a BBQ event and classes at Intown Ace Hardware in Decatur next Wednesday and Thursday. Click here for the Master BBQ class. Click here for the Surf & Turf class.

702 talks The Queens of R&B Tour and more: The hit 90s group will hit the stage with SWV and Xscape. The ladies will also be back in Vegas for the Lovers and Friends Festival.

Pike Nurseries gives tips on Earth Day sustainability and growing your own Food: To find a Pike Nursery near you, click here.

Wisdom Nuggets with Veda Howard: "Your smile is your logo. Your personality is your business card, and the way you make others feel is your trademark." Every weekend on her Praise 102.5 show, which airs Saturday and Sunday from 3 to 7p.m., Veda shares Wisdom Nuggets. A Wisdom Nugget is an inspiring or encouraging quote from Veda, business moguls, bumper stickers and everywhere in between; accompanied by scripture.