Helping residents and counties get disposal right.
ClearPath helps residents find the right way to dispose of any item — and helps counties give their residents that answer with confidence. This page is the story of why we built it, who we are, and what we're committed to over the long term.
Three real problems we set out to solve.
- For residents
When a resident wants to know where to take an old paint can, a lithium battery, or a worn-out mattress, they get conflicting answers from a Google search, outdated PDFs on the county website, and a confidently wrong answer from ChatGPT — none of which know the rules for their specific neighborhood.
- For counties
County staff answer the same handful of resident questions over and over by phone and email. The recycling facility downstream rejects whole loads contaminated with one wrong item. Outreach campaigns are run on guesswork because no one has good data on what residents are actually confused about.
- For compliance with federal and state rules
Federal and state safety rules for hazardous waste rely on training sessions and PDF guides that go stale as staff turn over. There's no system that makes sure those rules are reflected in what residents actually see and act on.
ClearPath was built to address all three at once. The resident gets a clear, sourced answer for their specific address. The county gets a clear picture of what their residents are asking and a working catalog they can keep current. Safety rules for hazardous items are built into the platform itself, not into a binder on someone's desk.
A platform built around five clear promises.
- A clear answer for any resident's disposal question, specific to their address and backed by a real source
- A simple workspace for your county team to manage your disposal rules, your facilities, and your local programs
- A monthly view of what your residents are asking about and where your existing programs aren't reaching
- A measurement layer for grant reports — pounds diverted, CO₂ avoided, programs participated in, with the methodology shown
- Not an advertising channel for haulers, donation organizations, or take-back programs
- Not a tool that emails or markets to your residents — your county owns that relationship
- Not a chatbot — AI helps in the background only when our rule engine cannot answer, and a person reviews everything it suggests
- Not a public posting board — only your county's verified team can publish rules to your residents
- Not a replacement for your county website, your brand, or your resident relationships
TANN Innovations — a small Minnesota team.
ClearPath is built by TANN Innovations LLC, a Minneapolis-based company focused on tools for local government. The platform was founded by Bismellah Amiri. We started with Hennepin County as our first pilot partner. Ramsey County joined as our second county. Anoka, Dakota, and Washington counties have ZIP coverage set up and their rule catalogs are next in line.
Becoming a true public good.
Over the next few years, we plan to convert ClearPath into a mission-aligned ownership structure — either a Public Benefit Corporation or a non-profit foundation — with a board that includes counties, residents, and environmental non-profits. Pricing would be set to cover our costs and reinvest in the mission, not to maximize returns to a private owner.
We believe this is the right structure for a tool that local governments and residents rely on. It protects our commitments from the pressure that comes when an investor or acquirer wants a faster return.