About JLK Dumpster Rental
About JLK Dumpster Rental Battle Creek MI
One yard on 79 Grand Trunk Ave, 11 years of Calhoun County driveways, basement stairs and jobsites, and a phone somebody actually answers.
- Licensed & insured
- Same-day delivery
- Flat-rate pricing
- Locally owned
How it started
One truck, and a phone somebody answered
Jason Keller started JLK Dumpster Rental with a single roll-off and a handful of containers. The idea was not clever — it was simply that the haulers working this stretch of southwest Michigan were hard to reach, vague about timing, and quick to add a charge nobody had mentioned on the phone.
So the pitch was the opposite. One number that covers the job. A delivery time, then actually hitting it. Answering the phone yourself. In a city the size of Battle Creek word moves quickly — one remodeller tells another, a roofer mentions it to a supplier — and inside a couple of years one truck was not enough.
The company is bigger now. The rules have not moved.
What we stand on
Four things we will not trade away
A quote you can hold us to
The number we give you covers delivery, the rental period, pickup, fuel, disposal and a stated tonnage allowance. If a job looks likely to run heavy we say so before the truck leaves, not after it is weighed.
We know the Michigan rules cold
Michigan keeps yard waste out of landfill and puts a 10¢ deposit on drink containers, and the usual bans apply to paint, solvents, fuel, chemicals, batteries and refrigerant appliances. We tell you what has to come out of the load up front — which is the difference between a clean job and a rejected one.
Somebody else's property gets treated like ours
Boards under the rails on every driveway placement. Drivers who walk the spot before they set. And if we do leave a mark, we own it and sort it out.
The right box, not the biggest
Older housing around here is full of plaster and lath, and it weighs several times what modern drywall does. We would rather book you two lighter pulls than watch you pay an overage on one.
Where we work
Calhoun County is a specific place, and it shows in the work
Serving this corner of Michigan properly means knowing things a national dispatcher never will. That the older grid around Urbandale and the neighbourhoods that grew up around the cereal plants were laid out for a different century of traffic, with short drives and detached garages set well back. That once you are out past Pennfield or Bedford the properties get longer and the approach matters more than the address.
It means knowing the housing. Battle Creek's pre-war housing stock carries plaster and lath that weighs several times what modern drywall does — a couple of rooms of it will surprise you — along with pre-1978 lead paint and asbestos-era materials that have to be assessed before anything gets broken up. Nearly everything here has a full basement, which is where most of the volume on a cleanout actually lives.
And it means the calendar. The autumn roofing rush before the weather turns. Interior renovation through winter, when frozen ground actually carries a loaded truck better than spring does. The spring weight restrictions that change what a truck can legally run on posted roads. And every May, the whole county deciding at once that the basement is finally getting cleared.
By the numbers
Where we are today
11+
Years hauling across Calhoun County and Kalamazoo County.
5
Container sizes, from a 10 yard heavy-debris box to a 40 yard commercial can.
18
Towns covered across Calhoun County and Kalamazoo County.
1
Phone number, answered at our own yard.
Meet the work
What a normal week looks like
Monday might open with a 15 yard on a short drive in Springfield for a basement cleanout, then a swap on a framing job out toward Marshall where the crew filled a 30 faster than anyone planned. Tuesday could be a tear-off in Pennfield where the box has to go tight to the eave because the side yard slopes away.
Midweek there is usually an estate clearance — a family home in Albion or a place out toward Athens, where the job is as much about patience as tonnage, and where the basement and the detached garage between them account for most of the load. Fridays lean commercial: restaurant and retail fit-outs, light industrial tenants along the I-94 corridor, property managers turning units.
Then the weather leans on all of it. Autumn is the roofing rush. Winter is interior work and snow-cleared placements. Spring brings the posted weight restrictions and the scheduling conversations that come with them. And when a storm comes through, everything gets rearranged and we run storm loads until the limbs are off people's yards.
Common questions
About JLK Dumpster Rental
Who owns JLK Dumpster Rental?
Jason Keller founded the company and still runs it. It is locally owned and operated out of our yard on 79 Grand Trunk Ave in Battle Creek: no franchise agreement, no out-of-state parent company, and no national call centre sitting between you and the person who actually schedules the truck.
How long have you been in business?
Since 2014 — around 11 years serving Battle Creek, Calhoun County, Kalamazoo County and the wider southwest Michigan area. In that time we have hauled for homeowners clearing a single basement, roofers stripping two-layer tear-offs off 1920s houses, and builders running several sites at once from Marshall out to Kalamazoo.
Are you licensed and insured?
Yes — licensed to haul in Michigan and carrying general liability and commercial auto cover. If you are a contractor, property manager or association and need a certificate of insurance on file before we come on site, ask when you call and we will usually have it issued the same day.
What areas do you cover?
Battle Creek and across Calhoun County and Kalamazoo County — Springfield, Bedford, Pennfield, Emmett Township, Urbandale, Marshall, Albion, Homer, Athens, Union City, Tekonsha, Bellevue, Augusta, Galesburg, Richland, Portage and Kalamazoo among them. If you are just outside that ring, call anyway.
Do you know the Michigan disposal rules?
In detail, because we deal with them every day. Michigan keeps yard waste out of landfill, puts a 10¢ deposit on carbonated and alcoholic drink containers, and the usual bans apply to liquids, paint, solvents, fuel, chemicals, batteries, propane and refrigerant appliances. We tell you what has to be separated before you load anything, rather than after a load gets rejected.
Do the spring frost laws affect my delivery?
They can, and we would rather explain it up front than cancel on you. When the ground thaws, road authorities across Michigan post seasonal weight restrictions on certain roads — usually somewhere in the March-to-May window, announced each year rather than fixed by calendar. It can mean a lighter fill, a different route or two smaller pulls instead of one heavy one. We plan around it.
Do you work with contractors on ongoing accounts?
We do, and a good share of our week is repeat trade. Accounts get priority on swap-outs, consistent pricing across every site you are running, certificates of insurance on file and consolidated invoicing. If you have more than one job live at a time it is worth setting up properly.
Talk to a real person
Talk to the team about your job
One call, a straight quote, and a delivery time we will actually hit.
Mon–Sat 7:00am – 6:00pm · Sun by appointment