Most mornings, Anna Dunbar can be found outside.
She begins her day with a walk around her neighborhood. She checks on her bird feeders and later meets friends for a standing 10 a.m. coffee date. It’s a routine that reflects the things she values most: community, nature and connection.
Those values have shaped her life and career.
Dunbar has spent her adult life helping Waco residents think differently about waste, recycling and environmental stewardship. She is a longtime volunteer with Keep Waco Beautiful and the Central Texas Audubon Society, and she is retired from a decades-long career administering environmental and solid waste programs.
But ask her what inspires that work, and she doesn’t start with regulations or programs.
She starts with people.
“I think in the end I enjoyed the work in which I felt that I had a positive impact on an individual’s sustainability efforts,” Dunbar said.
Dunbar credits her mother with planting the seeds of that mindset. Dunbar grew up as a self-described Army brat who lived in six states and Japan. Those frequent moves meant living simply and being mindful about what the family bought and kept.
Then came Earth Day.
As a high school student, she participated in one of the early Earth Day celebrations after the movement began in 1970. Later, at Baylor University, she discovered a love for service and community involvement through CHIS women’s service sorority. While pursuing graduate studies, an internship with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Dallas office introduced her to the policy side of environmental work.
Though she appreciated the importance of regulations, she found herself drawn to something more personal.
“I learned that I enjoyed making personal connections with folks,” she said. “Collaborating, chatting and working together is what made me happy.”
She returned to Waco in 1994 when her husband accepted a position at Baylor University. It wasn’t a move she expected to make.
“I never thought I’d come back to Waco,” she said. “But we’ve loved it.”
A year later, she went to work for Waco city government and became part of the community’s growing sustainability efforts. Back then, recycling was still a new concept for many residents.
“When I began working for Waco in 1995, a common question people would ask was, ‘What’s recycling and why should I do it?'”
Dunbar has seen environmental work from different perspectives. In 2000, she took a role as regional director for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, where she spent a decade helping enforce environmental regulations, including compliance issues with Waco’s landfill. She later returned to the city in 2010 and retired there in 2021 as a top environmental and solid waste administrator.
One of the projects she remains most proud of is the city’s Household Hazardous Waste Day, which gives residents a safe way to dispose of items such as paints, pesticides, cleaners and old gasoline.
One interaction from those early events has stayed with her for nearly 30 years.
A woman approached her, relieved to finally have a way to remove hazardous materials her father had stored for years. He didn’t want to throw them away improperly, but the paints, chemicals and fuels had accumulated over decades. The daughter worried about both the fire risk and her father’s safety.
The collection event offered a solution.
“That made me see Household Hazardous Waste Day on a personal level,” Dunbar said.
Today, she sees a city that has come a long way from those early conversations about recycling.
“Waco’s population has educated itself about so many important sustainability issues since I moved back here in 1994,” she said.
She points to growing community interest in conservation efforts, native plants, wildlife education and environmental stewardship. Organizations like Keep Waco Beautiful, the Central Texas Audubon Society and the newly resurrected Native Plant Society of Texas chapter give residents more opportunities than ever to get involved.
Just as important are the relationships that come with the work.
“There are a number of wonderful folks I’ve met that are part of the sustainability community here,” she said. “Their enthusiasm, encouragement and friendship are a big part of why I keep going.”
As Waco continues to grow, Dunbar hopes residents remember a simple lesson.
“We all live downstream,” she said.
For her, the phrase is about more than protecting water, land and wildlife. It’s a reminder that every action affects someone else.
“Be kind to your neighbor,” Dunbar said. “And everyone is your neighbor.”
