Dive Brief:
- Michigan-based Titan Environmental, which primarily operated via subsidiary Standard Waste Services, has gone out of business.
- The company’s collection assets are being auctioned off by March 26, and its Detroit hauling facility was listed for sale earlier this month.
- This follows a a period of financial losses and string of lawsuits filed against the company and its subsidiaries in recent years. One led to a nearly $10.5 million judgment against Standard in October for failing to pay Michigan-based Utica Leaseco as part of an equipment lease agreement.
Dive Insight:
This outcome is the latest development in a saga that has lasted for more than a decade involving corporate entities starting with a digester technology company, which sold to a software company, which acquired a waste hauler in Michigan to form a new growth platform with help from a well-known local family, which then almost sold to a biotech company before ceasing its securities filings and closing up shop.
Titan was unique as a local, publicly traded hauler in an industry with relatively few public companies. As of its latest annual filing in March 2025, Titan reported an estimated 40 employees and $9.57 million in annual revenue for 2024, its last full year of financial accounting. The company reported $1.75 million in revenue for Q1 2025, its last quarter of filed results.
Federal records from last year attributed 23 vehicles to Titan Trucking and 16 to Standard. Maynards, the auction house conducting the equipment sale, advertised a variety of roll-off and packer trucks, along with other vehicles, tractors and more than 1,000 containers.
Titan Environmental’s roots date back to the May 2023 acquisition of Michigan-based Titan Trucking by software company Traqiq, which was intended to create a platform for further growth. Traqiq entered the waste sector earlier that year with the purchase of Renovare Environmental, a provider of onsite digestion equipment that also launched a now-closed mechanical biological treatment facility in West Virginia. Renovare was previously known as BioHiTech Global.
Frank Celli, former CEO of New Jersey-based Interstate Waste Services, was a common denominator across these companies. He served as CEO of BioHiTech, then later as a board member of Renovare and Titan Environmental.
Traqiq soon changed its name to Titan Environmental and installed new leadership that came from Titan Trucking as part of the purchase. This included the appointment of Glen Miller, former CEO of Gold Medal Environmental Services and Choice Environmental Service, as Titan’s CEO. Jeffrey Rizzo, Titan Trucking’s founder in 2017, became COO.
TraqIq CEO Ajay Sikka also maintained a board role with the newly formed Titan Environmental.
As of 2023, Titan executives planned to focus on hauling more than post-collection and scale via acquisitions. Titan initially targeted Michigan, but it also considered possible expansion into neighboring states. The company saw an opening for an independent hauler amid a period of consolidation in the market, including GFL Environmental’s 2016 purchase of Rizzo Environmental Services, its first solid waste deal in the United States.
This transaction came shortly before Rizzo Environmental CEO, Chuck Rizzo, Jr., was charged with bribing local officials in 2017. Rizzo, who is Jeffrey’s brother, was convicted in 2018. Chuck Rizzo later became an investor and advisor to Titan.
Titan announced plans to acquire Ohio-based Recycle Waste Services in 2023, but that deal was later terminated. Its first and only known acquisition as a platform was Standard Waste Services in 2024. Co-owner Dominic Campo joined the company at that time.
In 2024, Titan also pursued certain municipal contracts, sold its rebranded Recoup digester business for $1 million to “a related party through a direct family relationship” to Jeffrey Rizzo and raised $4.9 million via series B and C stock offerings.
The company reported a net loss of $10.4 million in 2024, followed by a net loss of $5.3 million for Q1 of 2025, which was an improvement from net losses in 2023. While it reported raising $1 million in proceeds from investors during Q1, including Celli, the company had a working capital deficit of $20.4 million and questioned whether it could continue operating as a going concern.
Legal filings show that Titan and various subsidiaries were frequently subject to lawsuits during this period, often over payment issues.
This included legal action by the South Macomb Disposal Authority over unpaid tipping fees, which was decided in the authority’s favor but still pending collection as of January. The company was also sued by WM, as well as KSK & Associates, for related issues.
In addition, the company and Rizzo were sued by lender Moneywell GRP for allegedly failing to make payments as part of a financing arrangement that involved claim to future receipts. Rizzo departed the company in February 2025, the same month this lawsuit was filed. The case was closed earlier this year to due a lack of responsiveness from the plaintiff.
In April of that year, the company terminated Michael Jansen as its CFO. Jansen remained employed in the company’s accounting group. Titan appointed a new CFO at that time, Anna Skowron, who resigned last month. Skowron said via email she had no knowledge of company events that occurred before her tenure.
In another twist, Titan announced an agreement in June 2025 to be acquired by Windtree Therapeutics, a struggling, publicly traded biotechnology company, for an estimated $36.75 million. Windtree announced in November it had chosen to terminate the deal and was due a $7.5 million advance paid to Titan.
Titan couldn’t be reached for comment following the Windtree deal’s termination.
The company’s most recent SEC filings are one from August noting shares issued to an existing investor, the departure of Celli in October and a January order from the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring a registration statement abandoned due to nine months of inactivity. Campo also filed a statement resigning as the registered agent for Standard in December.
Multiple former Titan executives and board members could not be reached or declined to comment.
A cell phone number for Sikka redirected to an employee of Maximum Waste who previously worked for Titan. That employee said the number no longer belonged to Sikka, and neither of them had any current connection with Titan. Maximum Waste was formed by Jeffrey Rizzo in January 2025.
Titan’s website and associated email addresses are no longer active.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional information about Titan Environmental’s former CFOs.
