The late Don Palmer’s heirs take over the disposal business.

Since her youth, Heather Church has been following the evolution of garbage.

Once, all was trash. Then came the separation of cans, cardboard and glass.

Tastes changed as well. Boring bottles of beer, first drained and then deposited in recycle bins, slowly became microbrews.

Not that anyone’s keeping track. It’s just that it’s easy to notice the changing times when one is involved with the waste disposal business, as Church has been for much of her life.

“It was the family business,”she said, recalling how her father, Don Palmer, slowly built Bainbridge Disposal. “My mom used to answer phones at the kitchen counter.”

Palmer gave islanders curbside service for 40 years before retiring last year.

He passed away shortly after his retirement, accelerating the transition of the company to his daughter and her husband, Dean, who are now doing their best to carry on Palmer’s legacy.

Under their leadership, Bainbridge Disposal’s 28 employees and 18 trucks serve some 6,300 Bainbridge customers. They offer trash pickup and recycling service that is set to expand in the coming months.

The company too has changed over the years, moving from the Palmers’ kitchen counter to a roomier space off Sportsman Club Road.

Call volumes have increased accordingly, from 10 per day in the late 1970s to nearly 200 per day in 2007. So how do they deal with all that garbage?

“I just try to ask myself ‘what would Don do,’” Dean said. “He wanted to keep the company small and local. “

Prior to Palmer, there was no organized, island-wide trash pickup. People shuttled waste to the dump in trucks, but they weren’t big, blue, gold and white like they are today. Don entered the market in 1966, the year Heather was born.

Things slowly grew, with the company eventually becoming a big part of the Bainbridge backbone.

Preferring community over cash, Palmer over the years spurned many offers from large corporations that wanted to take over trash duties on the island.

Like Palmer, the Churches want Bainbridge Disposal to remain a local fixture.

They contribute regularly to community causes and organizations, most recently by helping, free of charge, to clean up storm debris – 55 tons worth, to be exact.

The couple said stormy weather this winter has caused its share of problems for employees and customers of the company. Safety concerns have sidelined trucks on a number of occasions, forcing employees to hustle to catch up with missed service.

“Our employees are great,” Heather said, adding that some have worked at Bainbridge disposal for more than 30 years. “Everyone gets along and it’s a really nice atmosphere here.”

Dean, who also owns Liberty Bay Auto Center in Poulsbo, said he’s adjusting as best he can to his new trade.

So is Heather, who, like her husband, graduated from Bainbridge High School.

Both had hoped to have the counsel of Palmer as they transitioned into their new position, but are doing their best to keep the company strong, and local, the way Palmer would have wanted it.

“It’s not like were some huge corporation swooping in out of the sky,” Heather said.

And although the island and the garbage business have changed, the marrow of the company is in many ways the same.

“We want to continue what Don started,” Dean said, “and improve on it where we can.”