Traverse City to host Michigan recycling showcase and investor pitches

Traverse City’s next clean-economy business opportunity is likely to unfold at the City Opera House, where Carter’s Compost and 14 other teams will pitch projects that could bring money, partners and pilot customers to Grand Traverse County. The June 24 showcase puts local food-waste collection, recycling, reuse and recycled-content ideas in front of investors, public officials and industry leaders who can help turn plans into funded projects.

The NextCycle Michigan Summer Showcase is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. to 6:40 p.m. and will serve as the culminating event of the NextCycle Michigan Accelerator program. Fifteen teams will present reuse, recycling, recovery and recycled-content projects, while competing for monetary awards. Organizers expect business leaders, public sector decision-makers, recycling industry representatives, community groups and investors to attend, creating a room where local startups and established employers can make the kind of connections that often determine whether a concept stays a concept or becomes a contract.

For Traverse City, the local name on the list matters. Carter’s Compost is focused on rural community drop-off programs to collect food waste for composting, a model that could help farms, restaurants, townships and small businesses keep organics out of the landfill while building a new service network. The showcase’s organics track also reaches beyond food waste into food rescue, food scrap recovery, repurposing wood waste and creating new end markets for finished compost, all areas with direct relevance to northern Michigan’s agriculture, landscaping and manufacturing sectors.

The other teams widen the stakes across the state. Projects include Detroit Bio Loop, FoodPLUS Detroit, Greenstreet Tree Care, Northern Michigan University, Partridge Creek Compost, Takachar, Washtenaw County Materials Management Division, Carbon Free Earth, Cold Spark, Driven Plastics, Hyphae Composites, Reclamation Factory and RokPaper Packaging. Together, they reflect the mix of nonprofits, small businesses, public agencies and community groups that NextCycle Michigan has tried to push toward the same goal: turning materials headed for disposal into supply-chain inputs and local jobs.

NextCycle Michigan is run by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, with facilitation from Resource Recycling Systems and support from Centrepolis Accelerator at Lawrence Technological University and the Michigan Recycling Coalition. Since 2020, the program has backed more than 170 projects across over 50 Michigan counties with support from more than 130 partners. In 2024, EGLE said the program helped move materials back into the supply chain, and in Novi that fall, 14 teams shared more than $100,000 in awards and support.