NORTH PROVIDENCE — Mayor Charles Lombardi wants taxpayers to take notice. Recycling is saving the town hundreds of thousands of dollars in trash disposal fees and can save even more, he says, if more people recycle.

Recent numbers show that the town has significantly reduced the amount of trash it sends to the state’s Central Landfill, saving $246,000 in tipping fees this fiscal year.

Add in the savings from not having public works trucks making daily runs to the landfill, he says, and the savings to the town this year will be around $330,000.

“I don’t think people fully realize the financial savings that come with a good recycling program. If you look at it, putting out those green and blue bins are saving us money and are helping to stabilize taxes,” Lombardi said.

“Our biggest problem areas have been the School Department and the condominium associations, but we hope to have them on board soon.”

The state charges municipalities $37 for every ton dropped off at the landfill, excluding paper and other recyclable items that are brought in separately. There is no fee for recyclables. However, if a municipality brings more trash that its preauthorized limit — which for North Providence is 13,813 tons for the year — the tipping fee goes up to $57.50 per ton.

Robert Nascimento, the town’s recycling coordinator, said that for the first time, the town will be completing this fiscal year below its cap. Last year the town was 3,000 tons over its limit. The reductions result entirely from recycling.

Nascimento and the mayor said much of the credit for the year’s improvement belongs to the new trash hauler, which not only bid $70,000 lower than any of its competitors, but pledged to cooperate with the recycling efforts.

Despite repeated warnings from the town, Nascimento said employees of the previous trash hauler mixed recyclables with trash, increasing tipping charges.

“If someone left out a washing machine or other heavy item, they would throw that in the truck, too. All that made for a lot of tonnage we shouldn’t have been paying for.”

But Lombardi said there were other policies that were put into place at the public works garage that saved money as well. The garage now has separate containers designated for metal, wood, yard waste and trash that workers collected on various projects. Materials are only taken to the Central Landfill when there is a full load.

Prior to a directive from the mayor, public works employees were making almost daily trips to deposit waste at the landfill even when the trucks weren’t even full. Nascimento said he followed one town truck that made the 22.6 mile round trip with only nine branches. At the time — back when fuel was $2.80 a gallon, he calculated that such trips were costing $85.65 each in fuel and salaries — two hours in wages for a driver and his assistant. The trucks average 8 miles a gallon.

The recycling coordinator said that the town had spent $23,109 for those trips in the four months before the mayor ended the practice. Lombardi noted that any metals that DPW employees collect in the form of swing sets, chain link fences, for instance, are sold to a recycler in East Greenwich.

Nascimento said that more work needs to be done, and new efforts are under way to get the School Department more involved in the recycling program.

He said he became aware that schools might not be recycling as much as they should when a parent of a student at the high school called to ask why homeowners were required to flatten cardboard boxes before putting them out for recycling while school custodians did not.

After a meeting between town and school officials on Monday, the mayor’s chief of staff, G. Richard Fossa, said everyone was on the same page that there should be more recycling.

He said school custodians said cardboard boxes they deal with are often too big for recycling bins.

“Public works may be able to help out by picking up some of the cardboard, and we’ll be looking into getting some grants to get some kind of baling machine to fold the cardboard,” Fossa said. “This could be an opportunity for us because we’ve been told cardboard right now is worth $150 a ton.”

The mayor said that residents of condominiums have been reluctant to recycle and that has to change.

If attempts at persuasion don’t work, he said the town might consider measures similar to those adopted in East Providence where there is a “no bins, no trash pick-up” policy in which a trash barrel will not be emptied if there are no blue and green recycling bins sitting alongside.

rdujardi@projo.com