CUMBERLAND — A town policy implemented in November to boost recycling numbers has brought in more than $165,000 in revenue and savings to the town, according to Mayor Daniel J. McKee.

The town will receive $95,624 from the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation as part of the quasi-state agency’s profit sharing on recycling. The agency will announce the amounts that each community will receive from the program at a news conference today.

The town has also saved $70,088 in fees over the previous year due in large part to greater recycling, McKee said. Resource Recovery charges communities $32 per ton of refuse sent to the landfill; it does not charge for recyclables.

“The name of the game is to increase recycling tons,” says town Public Works Director Eugene Jeffers, since it has the twofold benefit of lowering the town’s cost of sending trash to the landfill as well as giving the town a greater cut of the landfill’s recycling profits.

Every municipality in the state qualifies for a slice of the revenue Resource Recovery earns selling recyclables brought to and sorted at its Johnston facility, according to Sarah Kite, director of recycling at the landfill.

The agency doles out 50 percent of the recycling profits to local communities, but each community’s slice is determined by the amount, in tons, of recyclables it brings in.

Jeffers says that from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008, the town brought 3,738 tons of recyclables to the landfill, up from 2,954 the previous year. That tonnage translates into the $95,624 that the town will receive from Resource Recovery.

McKee credits the windfall to the town’s decision last year not to collect trash from residences that fail to put out a recycling bin.

Introduced on Nov. 26, 2007, the “No Bin, No Barrel” rule was promoted as an effort to boost the town’s sagging recycling numbers and save money on fees the town pays at the landfill.

McKee said at the time that the program would force habitual non-recyclers to do their part to separate paper, plastic, aluminum, and other recyclables from their refuse.

Since the policy was implemented, McKee says more residents are recycling, as evidenced in the increase in the town’s recycling rate from 16.9 percent to 22.5 percent of the total refuse sent to the landfill.

The increase of 784 tons of total annual recyclables resulted in a savings of $25,088 in fees at the landfill, McKee said.

It was a far cry from the previous fiscal year, when the town exceeded the landfill’s cap on the total amount of refuse tons and was hit with $45,000 in fees.

The difference in fee expenses for the town translates into a $70,088 savings.

pmarcelo@projo.com