This accelerator track seeks to advance projects that transform any aspect of organics recovery in Michigan, from food rescue and food scrap recovery to repurposing wood waste and new end market development for finished compost.

• Carter’s Compost (Traverse City, MI): Creating rural community drop-off programs to offer food waste collection for composting.

• Detroit Bio Loop (Detroit, MI): Piloting a black soldier fly composting system utilizing institutional (e.g., hospital, airport, university, etc.) organic waste.

• FoodPLUS Detroit (Detroit, MI): Developing a composting network where food waste generated in Detroit is collected and delivered to Detroit-based urban farm compost operations.

• Greenstreet Tree Care (Dexter, MI): Developing the first municipal log recovery yard in Michigan that will transform wood waste into long-lived lumber, soil-improving biochar, clean mulch, and firewood.

• Northern Michigan University (Marquette, MI): Expanding post-consumer composting across campus.

• Partridge Creek Compost (Ishpeming, MI): Seeking engagement with Marquette County municipalities to increase access to composting in the county.

• Takachar (Petaluma, CA): Deploying small-scale, low-cost, portable systems to densify crop and forest residues into higher-value biobased products.

• Washtenaw County Materials Management Division (Ann Arbor, MI): Creating a roadmap to dramatically increase residential access to food scrap composting throughout the county.

This accelerator track seeks to advance novel material recovery or sorting technologies, waste minimization techniques, new uses for recycled or organic materials, and other innovations in sustainable materials management.

• Carbon Free Earth (Muskegon, MI): Recycling wind turbine blades into lightweight aggregate for redi-mix and pre-cast concretes.

• Cold Spark (Longmont, CO): Deploying decentralized, super-cooled cryomilling technology to safely and efficiently recover 99% of critical materials from spent EV batteries and e-waste.

• Driven Plastics (Pueblo, CO): Establishing a Michigan hub to upcycle post-consumer polyethylene film into a performance-enhancing additive for hot mix asphalt.

• Hyphae Composites (Chicago, IL): Building a reprocessing solution for post-industrial plastic extrusion and injection molding scrap.

• Reclamation Factory (Pittsburgh, PA): Developing a multi-modal sorting technology that uses acoustic signatures to sort recyclable plastics.

• RokPaper Packaging (Phoenix, AZ): Building a facility in Michigan to produce a recycled-paper-based foam that replaces plastic packaging foams.

• Sun Sugar Farms (Verona, KY): Marketing compostable and biodegradable paperboard containers to replace plastic produce clamshells.

• Tessera Materials (Pittsburgh, PA): Developing technology to recycle post-consumer/-industrial flexible foam, like that found in mattresses, into high-value functional additives that can be used in new products across multiple industries.