MIDDLETOWN — The Environmental Protection Agency will use Middletown’s new curbside trash-pickup system as a barometer for how similar waste-removal programs limit harmful greenhouse gases.

The EPA has selected Middletown as one of the communities the agency will study in updating its 2006 study on solid-waste management and greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that contribute to climate change.

The town’s contracted trash-bag provider, Phoenix Recycling Inc., suggested Middletown to the EPA, Town Administrator Gerald S. Kempen siad.

The EPA, Kempen said, will compare data from the last six months on Middletown’s use of the Burma Road transfer station, plus the amount of trash carted away by private haulers, with data from the first six months of the town’s “pay-as-you-throw” system, which launches Nov. 1.

The study will cost the town nothing and should require only minimum work by town staff, Kempen said.

According to the EPA, overall waste disposal drops by 14 percent to 27 percent, on average, when a community implements a pay-as-you-throw trash program. Recycling rates typically jump by between 32 percent and 59 percent.

Pay-as-you-throw programs limit greenhouse gases by reducing the energy spent on producing, shipping and disposing products and reducing methane emissions from decomposing material in landfills, according to the EPA. The federal agency estimates that annual greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by .085 metric tons of carbon equivalent — the unit of measure used for greenhouse gases — for each person that participates in a PAYT program.

Locally, fewer garbage trucks — using less fuel — will be traveling local roads once the program starts, Kempen said, because at least some of the two-thirds of the town’s residents now using private haulers are expected to drop their contracted service for the cheaper town program.

Plus, recycling is free under the new system, so officials hope that residents will recycle more materials to save money on the 15- and 33-gallon trash bags, which will be sold for $2 and $2.50 each, respectively.

“Where pay-as-you-throw will help considerably is in the recycling,” Kempen said. “Most people probably know that in the back of their mind. This study puts so concretely, from the nation’s top environmental regulatory agency, another level of importance in people’s mind. Now we’ve heard directly how important this is. Soon we’ll find out how our individual efforts will contribute to limiting greenhouse gases.”

The town decided on the automated, pay-as-you-throw curbside-pickup program to handle the town’s waste once Middletown’s lease on the Navy-owned transfer station site expires at the end of the month.

The program cost will be covered entirely by the sale of the special yellow trash bags, stamped with the town’s logo, which will be available for sale in the coming weeks at local grocery and convenience stores. (The town is footing the bill to provide each household one free 33-gallon trash bag in their welcome packages.)

The waste bins — two per-household for recyclables: a blue bin for plastic, glass and metal and a green one for paper and cardboard, and one gray 64-gallon trash cart big enough to fit three 33-gallon rubbish bags — will be distributed in the last week of the month.

No signup is required for the program; bins will be delivered to all households. Trash pickup will be held weekly, with recyclable collection alternating — paper products one week and cans and bottles the next.

mwims@projo.com