Umatilla's Recycling Program

City of Umatilla's free recycle depot is located on the corner of Sixth Street and Yerxa Avenue, across from Columbia Harvest Foods. 

All solid waste (garbage, recycling, etc.) in Umatilla is contracted by the local private company, Sanitary Disposal, Inc. (SDI).  SDI collects and manages all curbside garbage collection, manages the free recycling center, and operates a waste transfer station. The transfer station address is: 81144 N Hwy 395, Hermiston, OR, 97838

Click on one of the following links to learn more about Sanitary Disposal:

Sanitary Disposal Website  -  Sanitary Disposal Facebook  -  Sanitary Disposal Instagram

Coming Soon - Curbside Recycling

Umatilla and other Oregon cities with more than 4,000 residents will soon be required by state law to provide curbside recycling.  This requirement was created by Senate Bill 582 which was signed into law in August 2021. The intent was to establish statewide standards for what can and cannot be recycled and establish new packaging fees for companies that sell products in Oregon. Those fees are meant to require product manufacturers and distributors to pay some of the costs for disposing of their packing. These producers will pay for all the upfront capital to implement curbside recycling, including the purchase of new trucks and recycling carts and will cover the ongoing cost of hauling the materials. Customers will cover the ongoing costs of staffing and maintaining the trucks.

Umatilla and other cities subject to the Recycling Modernization Act were supposed to begin curbside recycling by July 2025. But Oregon pushed out the deadline because of the complexity of implementing a first of its kind system. While Umatilla expects to roll out its curbside program next year, it doesn’t have an exact start date. The city is waiting on Sanitary Disposal Inc. to acquire the equipment and staff needed to run the program.

The Umatilla City Council approved curbside recycling rates at the December 2, 2025 regular city council meeting. Residential customers will pay $8.00 per month in exchange for a 95-gallon cart where they can recycle metal, cardboard, paper and plastic. Additional carts will be available to residential customers at no additional cost upon request. Having recycling carts and paying for the service will be mandatory. Sanitary Disposal Inc., the city’s sold waste franchisee, will pick up recycling every other week. Customers are encouraged to review their current level of service and consider optimizing their garbage service size.  For example, a customer who rarely fills their entire 90-gallon garbage service might consider downgrading to a 35-gallon garbage service.  A change like that may still provide the customer with adequate waste/recycling removal, while reducing cost.

Please check back for more updates as they become available.

Click HERE to watch a 3-minute overview of the Recycling Modernization Act

Reasons to Recycle and Prevent Waste

1. You love our community and state: Let’s help keep it clean. Recycling and reducing waste conserve precious natural resources such as timber, water and minerals used for new products and reduces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change.
2. You love clean air: Recycling and preventing waste prevents pollution by reducing the need to collect new raw materials and reducing the amount of waste that is burned or incinerated.
3. You love conserving energy: Products being recycled, reused, repurposed or repaired usually require much less processing to remain usable than extracting and processing raw materials.
4. You love saving money: Reducing and reusing allows products and materials to be used to the fullest – and can save you, your family, your business and your community money. Just one way this helps save businesses money is through decreased amounts of trash.
5. You love our community and environmental justice: Recycling and reuse activities create jobs, wages and tax revenue, and help combat the challenge of waste management facilities being concentrated in poor rural areas, communities of color or Native American reservations, which are then subjected to higher environmental and health hazards and lower property, recreation and aesthetic values. Reducing waste, repurposing materials and recycling bottles, cans and other materials also helps keep Oregon beautiful and litter-free!

Waste Prevention Tips

Waste prevention is as simple as buying and using less stuff. Ask yourself, do you really need it? How often will I use this? Can I rent or borrow it if I’m not going to use it very often?

Waste prevention reduces environmental impacts across the entire life cycle of materials. By reducing waste – not making that waste in the first place – we can reduce the amount and cost of extracting resources or raw materials, plus the costs and other impacts from manufacturing, transportation and end-of-life management, such as disposal or recycling.

Waste prevention is dubbed an “upstream” activity because it lowers waste through changes in the design, purchase and use of materials.

So there are choices we can make in addition to, or instead of, recycling: We can choose to reduce, reuse, repurpose and repair. Those choices will help us save natural resources and energy, prevent pollution, fight climate change, protect the environment and sustain our home on this planet for all of us and future inhabitants.