Baker Sanitary Service president Stephen Henry expected Baker City’s recycling rate would rise when the company started curbside collection in April, but he didn’t anticipate quite such a large increase. From April through October, Baker Sanitary collected 514 tons of recyclable material, an increase of 54% from the 334 tons the company brought in during that same seven-month period in 2025.
With more material being recycled, the volume of trash taken to Baker Sanitary’s landfill southeast of Baker City decreased by about 5% from April to September this year compared with the same period in 2025, Henry said. Baker Sanitary distributed the blue, 95-gallon recycling rollcarts in March, and emptied them for the first time during the week of April 13-17.
The carts are emptied every other week, rather than weekly as with garbage collection. Customers put garbage in a green, 65-gallon rollcart. Boosting recycling rates for Baker County was one of the goals in a law the Oregon Legislature passed in 2021.