The green movement is good for the environment, good for public relations and, for many area towns, much easier on the wallet.

A review of data collected by the state shows that recycling rates are on the rise in MetroWest and the Milford area, in part a reflection of many towns’ decisions to make recycling easier and more cost effective for residents.

Recycling rates for 26 area towns extrapolated from data provided by the Department of Environmental Protection show that the average recycling rate among towns that provided data was 31.2 percent in 2010, up from 26.8 percent in 2009.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generated about 250 million tons of trash, recycling and compost in 2010, with a national recycling rate of 34.1 percent.

The rate in MetroWest is likely closer to the national average in 2012, as many towns are promoting recycling as best they can.

"People don’t realize how expensive trash is," said Paul McNulty, director of public health in Westborough. "We always like to see more recycling, because it saves us money."

At 20 percent, Westborough had one of the lower recycling rates in 2010. Its residents go to the town dump to recycle, which McNulty said makes monitoring and encouraging recycling difficult.

"I don’t think the recycling rate is going to get much better unless we penalize people by having someone write a ticket," he said, something which would not only be difficult for employees to enforce, but isn’t likely to go over well with residents.

Town Manager Jim Malloy said he’d like to push the recycling rate higher, but there hasn’t been much appetite for the "Pay As You Throw" system that has been popular in many towns.

Generally, the system charges residents for each bag of trash they throw away, while recycling is free. In towns such as Wayland, the system has led to increased recycling rates and substantially lower trash disposal costs.

Wayland led the pack in MetroWest with a 49 percent recycling rate in 2010, and according to its 2011 Annual Town Report, residents recycled more than they threw out in fiscal 2011, with 1,115 tons recycled and 1,059 tons disposed of.

Wayland uses the Pay As You Throw model with its transfer station, which is one of only a handful of trash operations in MetroWest that pays for itself.

An enterprise fund set up for the dump is self-sustaining, the town wrote in its annual report, with expenditures not to exceed $500,000 for fiscal 2013. Residents pay $155 for a dump sticker each year.

Weston had a 30 percent recycling rate at its Transfer Station for fiscal 2012, with 1,532 tons recycled and 2,063 tons of solid waste.

In Ashland, Interim Town Manager Mark Purple said the Pay As You Throw program has boosted recycling by double digits since enacted in 2006 and "easily cut a third" of the solid waste thrown out in town.

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The town even gets a small cut of the action on value of its recyclables, he said, with a limited liability of a $15,000 loss should the market for the recyclables fall.

An increasing number of towns who do not elect to use Pay As You Throw are adopting a sort of hybrid system by providing trash totes of around 65 gallons and recycling totes closer to 100 gallons to encourage more recycling.

The large recycling totes accept all kinds of recyclables — called single-stream recycling — which might be the biggest help to area towns looking to boost recycling rates.

Marlborough just switched to the system this month, and projects it will save $300,000 a year by doing so. Framingham switched to large single-stream containers in 2010, and in fiscal 2012 residents recycled 350 more tons than the previous year, saving the town about $33,000.

Marlborough’s trash disposal costs were $2.9 million in 2012, whereas although it has about 30,000 more residents, Framingham has budgeted just $2 million for disposal in fiscal 2013.

Bellingham, the town with the lowest recycling rates among those surveyed, recorded rates of just 11 and 13 percent respectively in 2009 and 2010 The town also recently made the switch to single-stream recycling.

"Going single stream recycling … makes recycling much easier, and financially it helps," said Town Administrator Denis Fraine, adding that it also helps the environment and the look of neighborhoods.

"We don’t have recycling blowing all over the street on collection day anymore," he said, because people no longer have to sort recycling out in the smaller bins.

Fraine said the town hasn’t recalculated a recycling rate yet, but expects to conservatively save $70,000 this year in trash disposal costs.

"We’ve taken about a thousand tons out of the waste stream already," he said. "At 70 dollars (tipping fee) a ton, it starts to add up."

(Brad Petrishen can be reached at 508-490-7463 or bpetrishen@wickedlocal.com. For news throughout the day, follow him at twitter.com/Brad_Petrishen.)