Peggy Whitlow Ratcliffe is the Founder and Executive Director of Live Thrive, an Atlanta-based nonprofit launched in 2010 to empower people, organizations, communities and businesses to make positive, healthy and sustainable changes for the benefit of the environment. Peggy’s involvement in the environment space drew inspiration from her experience sorting through her parents’ home after they passed — she realized how many items there are in our homes that should and could be reused or need to be disposed of in a safe manner. She created the website Living Green Pages as a local resource to improve personal and environmental health. From there, Peggy organized several recycle collections in Atlanta. The success of these collection events led her to launch Live Thrive.

In 2015, Live Thrive opened the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM), a permanent drop-off facility that accepts traditional, single-stream items, as well as those that are more difficult or dangerous to recycle. Since its founding, CHaRM has diverted millions of pounds of household hazardous waste and other hard-to-recycle items from area landfills and water systems.

Peggy was born and raised in Atlanta and earned a bachelor’s degree in education at Georgia State University.