Curbside collection will become available this month in some Chattanooga neighborhoods for two kinds of materials — one brand new to the city and the other a throwback.
Glass recycling and food waste pickup for composting are coming to Brainerd and Belvoire for free through the city’s pilot partnership with companies that specialize in each material. The partnership begins in October and will last until June 2026, when the city will evaluate whether to keep it going or even expand it to other neighborhoods. A little over 100 households have signed up so far, according to the companies involved.
In the meantime, there’s a compost option available for everyone: Drop-off sites became active Oct. 1 at the city’s five recycling centers for food waste.
In order to access drop-off, residents have to sign up with the city to bring their waste to a specific recycling center — then a bucket will be available with the resident’s name on it at the center.
The city has partnered with other companies, like Hefty ReNew, in the past when it comes to recycling, so people could drop off hard-to-recycle plastics that can’t go in the blue bins at the city’s recycling centers. And the city outsources its recycling plant to contractor WestRock. But this would be the first attempt at outsourcing curbside pickup.
Participation in the program is voluntary, and households looking to opt-in have to sign up directly with either of the companies — Overlooked Materials for glass and NewTerra Composting for food waste. The program isn’t open to businesses, only residents.
GLASS
Morgan Holl, founder of Overlooked Materials, is excited to bring curbside glass pickup back into the recycling ecosystem in Chattanooga, he said.
“Our belief is there’s going to be a community of folks who are interested,” Holl said. “There were pretty loud voices when the service went away.”
Glass originally was welcome in city recycling bins alongside paper, plastics and cans up until 2018, when public works officials told residents to instead drop glass off at recycling centers. At the time, officials said that in bins, glass materials would frequently break into shards difficult to separate out from the rest of the material at the plant. The contaminated material would end up going to a landfill instead.
The city sent out a survey the same year that showed over half of residents would be unlikely to take the trip to bring glass to recycling centers.
Holl, who’s lived in Chattanooga since 2021, started his company a little over a year ago. It provides curbside glass recycling for houses in Chattanooga and other places like Collegedale and Hixson for a $15 monthly fee. It can also do pickup for businesses and apartments for different monthly prices depending on size.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga curbside glass recycling is likely gone for good)
Once collected, the glass goes to a plant in Chattanooga. At the plant, the glass is ground into gravel and sand that can be used for landscaping, which the company then sells to businesses in the area.
This partnership with the city makes curbside pickup with Overlooked Materials free for residents, Holl said. His agreement with the city pays the company $4 a household per month, with a 750 household cap for the nine-month pilot — a total of about $27,000 set aside for the glass side of the pilot.
Based on Overlooked Materials’ research, about 20,000 tons of glass waste are generated across the Chattanooga area, but only about 1,000 tons are recovered in recycling centers, Holl said. He’s hopeful there will be enough interest in a curbside program to narrow the gap.
“Ultimately, it’ll be up to the people of Chattanooga at the end of the day,” Holl said. “We think there’s interest, especially if we can get the price point to be very digestible.”
COMPOSTING
NewTerra Composting was founded five years ago by Michael Ryan and Normand Lavoie. The company is headquartered in Dade County and serves the Chattanooga area. The company was previously involved in the city’s Startup Week fair in 2021, when it was granted funding for curbside food waste pickup for 100 households.
The company reported at the time that 93 of the 100 households said they could reduce regular trash pickup to every other week while participating in the program.
The city reached out to NewTerra to create the pilot, Lavoie said, with grant funding from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation for an organics collection trial. The company has previously partnered with Red Bank to set up collection kiosks at its recycling center, but the scope of the Chattanooga partnership is the first of its kind for NewTerra, Lavoie said.
“It’s exciting that we’re working with the city,” Lavoie said. “Recycling has a trust issue, and it’s because of the lack of transparency … We are along Route 11, and you can drive down and from the road see our site. There’s no dumpsters. We turn every bit of organic material we collect into great compost that goes back into the community.”
(READ MORE: NewTerra aims to make composting easy for Chattanooga area residents and businesses)
NewTerra creates composted soil at its plant and then redistributes it to participating households or donates the excess to community gardens. Generally, the company charges $30 a month for curbside pickup and $15 a month for drop-off, Lavoie said. The pilot will have both be free of charge for those eligible.
The company can take anything but inorganic trash. Foods like dairy, meat, bones — even coffee grounds — that typically go unused by at-home composters can be broken down into soil by NewTerra’s industrial plant, Lavoie said.
Food waste typically makes up nearly a quarter of all municipal landfills, according to federal data. Composting helps extend the lifespan of landfills and lessen trash collection costs, Lavoie said. It could offer a financial benefit for Chattanooga, he said.
“I know some members of our community probably don’t care about the sustainability aspect, which is sad,” Lavoie said. “But at the same time, there is this aspect that I think should appeal to everyone who cares about Chattanooga.”
Usually, the company returns about 10 gallons of freshly composted soil in the spring and fall to households signed up for its membership program. NewTerra is still trying to iron out the details of how much it will give to those signed up for the pilot program, but Lavoie is hoping to deliver some soil to participating residents, he said.
Contact government reporter Siena Duncan at sduncan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.