Top: My Green Michigan’s collection fleet includes a Roto Pac automated sideloading vehicle. Photos courtesy My Green Michigan

My Green Michigan was started in 2014 by Cliff Walkington and Lee Hammond, Jr. to collect commercial, institutional and industrial food waste in the mid-Michigan region. Hammond’s family owns Hammond Farms Landscape Supply, which includes a yard trimmings and food waste composting facility in Dimondale, Michigan. Walkington was managing the composting division and was approached by a new Lansing area business that wanted to compost its food scraps, recalls Walkington. “We started out as a small-scale food scraps hauler, using only a pickup truck and trailer, and have since grown into a large-scale organics recycling company,” he says. “Over the years we experimented with different vehicles and collection systems, and now use compactor trucks with customers in every major city across Southern Lower Michigan.”

In early 2020, Bill Whitley, owner of Spurt Industries, joined My Green Michigan (MGM) as a partner. He had opened a yard trimmings composting facility in 2016 in Wixom, Michigan, and was looking start collecting food waste. “MGM was servicing generators in our area and instead of trying to compete with them, I decided that it made sense to just work together,” notes Whitley. “We finished the paperwork, and then COVID hit and the food waste collection business fell off by 90%. Once schools, restaurants, college campuses, corporate cafeterias and other generators opened again, we had to rebuild the business.”

My Green Michigan’s service territory. Map data ®2025 Google

The MGM fleet includes three packer trucks, including a Roto Pac, an automated sideloading vehicle. It also has two hook lift trucks for providing roll-off dumpster services. All material collected in southeast Michigan is composted at Spurt Industries; all material collected in mid, west, and southwest Michigan is composted at Hammond Farms. Food waste generators serviced include grocery stores, food manufacturers, universities, restaurants, K-12 schools, etc.

Material collected in southeast Michigan is composted at Spurt Industries. Material collected in mid, west, and southwest Michigan is composted at Hammond Farms.

In mid-August, MGM announced that it had acquired CO Sustainability, a food waste collection service owned by Country Oaks Landscape Supply in Burton, Michigan. The acquisition expands MGM’s footprint across southeast Michigan. “CO Sustainability hauls food waste, cardboard, and glass,” explains Jennifer McCullen at MGM. “We bought the food waste and cardboard customers/routes.” One of CO Sustainability’s largest customers, Royal Oak Public Schools, operates food recycling programs in eight buildings.