Photograph courtesy of Peace of Mind ATL
When his son, Gus, was born, Grant Wallace wanted to do everything he could to make the world a better place for him. He’d always been interested in recycling and had heard that more than 28 billion glass bottles and jars go to the landfill every year, remaining there for up to 1 million years before decomposing. Recycling rules are different among Georgia counties, and separating materials in advance helps ensure they get recycled properly, Wallace says. He used to live in unincorporated DeKalb, which doesn’t accept glass in the blue recycling bins, but he got sick of driving to drop it off elsewhere. When he looked for a company to pick it up for him, he came up empty.
That’s why Wallace started a glass recycling collection business called Peace of Mind—POMATL, for short. He charges $25 for a monthly pickup of up to 40 pounds of glass. Every bit goes straight to Strategic Materials in College Park, which specializes in recycling glass for businesses. The organization has recycled 12,380 pounds of glass to date. Wallace also runs the Atlanta Trash Talk Facebook group, where people exchange tips and information about composting and other environmentally friendly trash disposal methods.
“I believe in climate change, and we’re not headed in a great direction,” he explains. “I know glass recycling is a very small part, but every bottle counts.”
Instead of picking up glass door to door, most metro Atlanta counties offer drop-off locations where residents can recycle their household glass for free. Several local businesses also accept household glass, including Your Dekalb Farmers Market and the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM), which has two locations, in Atlanta and Decatur. City of Atlanta residents can technically recycle glass in their blue bins, but only if it remains intact during transit; if it breaks before it arrives at the recycling center, all contents of the bin get trashed. This is one of the main reasons Wallace chooses to recycle through his company POMATL, rather than use the bin provided in Grant Park, where he lives now. City of Decatur provides households with a separate glass bin, so glass gets successfully recycled even with breakage. “They do it right,” Wallace says.
When he’s not touting the benefits of recycling, Wallace stays busy running his landscaping company, Grantlanta Lawn. A drummer, he toured for years with Baby Bab—a “fun rock” band, as he puts it—and still plays locally with an instrumental progressive group, Challenger Deep. But these days, his focus is largely on his family and working to create a better future for his son, now almost two years old: “I’m kind of just trying to be a good role model for Gus.”
This article appears in our December 2024 issue.
