I remember when I was a kid, we would pack up all our trash & garbage, load it all into the car, and drive out of the village limits to a country dump. We would wind up the skinny dirt road (the kind with grass growing in the middle) toward the mountains of waste that awaited us. The smell would hit us before we saw the garbage…and when we did, it was mountain after mountain of burning trash and rotting food. Once arrived, a man chomping on a stogie and wearing a sleeveless t-shirt came out of his little hovel (he lived onsite) to greet us and help us unload. I recall him being a nice guy in spite of his surroundings, and after conversing for a while, off we went, with the man waving goodbye and uttering “see ya next time”.
That was our garbage experience when I was a kid.
Fast-forward a few decades and now I use a home waste service…and that happens to be Granger, the one I have used now for a good number of years. Instead of loading up the car with smelly trash, I just wheel it it to the road and it’s picked up…I’m sure you know how it works.
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I mention all this because Granger – a Lansing-based company – is celebrating their 60th anniversary this year (2026). How did it all start? According to the Granger web page, it began in 1966 when it kicked off with “a problem and a solution. The problem was trash generated by our small construction company. The solution? Buy a garbage truck and haul it ourselves. It worked so well for us that the following year we started providing trash service for other construction companies.”…