It's Climate Week through this Sunday, and we want to take a moment to share our perspective on why Sustain Charlotte's work is so critical to reducing our local contribution to climate pollution.

In addition to being critical to creating a more equitable city, we focus on smart growth and transportation choices because both are critical to curbing climate change.

Glass is difficult and costly to effectively separate from other recyclable materials like cardboard at recycling centers. Therefore, Mecklenburg County Solid Waste prefers residents bring their separated glass bottles and jars to one of their full service drop off centers. At those drop off sites, large yellow dumpsters have been clearly marked “Clean Glass Only”. When full, these non-contaminated, glass-only loads can be taken directly to glass processors to be easily recycled into new glass.

Our Challenge

Charlotte’s explosive growth continues. We support sustainable growth that ensures the Charlotte area is a great place to live and work for all. But our traditional growth pattern – low-density and heavily auto-centric — is not sustainable for the generations who will live and work here in the years ahead and has made living here difficult for many today.

Mecklenburg County Solid Waste offers free recycling and waste reduction educational programs to residents and local community groups.

To expand awareness and understanding within our LatinX community, the materials were recently translated into Spanish. Please share these resources with residents that prefer content in Spanish.

Each year we honor local sustainability leaders who are leading the way for a more sustainable future through their work. At this year's Charlotte Sustainability Awards presented by Duke Energy, we honored over 40 incredible nominees at our 2021 virtual event on the evening of April 22nd.

Of those nominees, six were selected by our independent panel of judges as winners, and were presented with beautifully handcrafted custom awards (donated by Carolina Urban Lumber). We also honored the two winners of the 2020 Recycling Excellence award. The day was extra meaningful because it was also Earth Day! 

Just in time for Earth Day 2021, Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Services has added a “Kids Can Recycle Right” webinar.

Now kids of ALL ages can learn how to Recycle Right, because that helps the planet EVERY day of the year! This webinar  (click HERE to view) is for ages 3 to 11.

The adult Recycle Right webinar (click HERE to view) is available for everyone else.

Then print out the free coloring page (click here for a .pdf version) and post it on your fridge!

Sustain Charlotte is proud to partner with Mecklenburg County Waste Services to educate the public about how to Recycle Right!

Mecklenburg County just took a HUGE STEP FORWARD in committing to environmental sustainability and racial equity in all of its operations! At the March 16th Mecklenburg County Commission meeting, the Environmental Leadership Policy and Action Plan were unanimously adopted.

Sustain Charlotte has joined 12 other organizations in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Climate Leaders group in sending a public comment letter on Mecklenburg County's draft update to the Environmental Leadership Policy and Action Plan. This is an update to the adopted 2004 plan. 

Here is the full text of that letter:

A new Congress will be taking their seats this January, and we want to see the transportation funding reforms in the INVEST Act improved upon, included in a Senate bill and made into law so that we can see real improvements to transportation in the Charlotte area.

Learn more about the reauthorization process and how to get involved at t4america.org.

Here is the letter we signed onto. We're grateful to Transportation for America for organizing this effort!

In an online forum yesterday evening, Sustain Charlotte called on Congress to invest $32 billion to keep buses and trains moving and to commit to high-quality, reliable, and equitable transit as the backbone of national economic recovery.  Speakers described how the COVID pandemic has impacted our community, and discussed the ways in which public transit investment can help us build a more just, equitable and sustainable economy. 

View full video coverage of the event here:

U.S. Congresswoman Alma Adams (NC-12) provided a keynote address.