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GREENSBORO — In all the racket over the city’s garbage disposal cost-saving schemes in 2011, one piece of the equation was all but ignored: recycling.

Greensboro’s recycling program, which collects about 30,000 tons annually, has room to grow. And there is good reason to make that a goal.

Ton for ton, last fiscal year Greensboro spent eight times more money to dump waste in a landfill than to recycle it.

Early next year, staff members are expected to give the City Council recommendations for Greensboro’s waste disposal strategy. That discussion likely will include the recycling program and ways to expand it or decrease costs.

“We are doing a good job. We can certainly do better,” said Dale Wyrick, director of the city’s field operations department. “We need the community’s help.”

City Council members spent the past three years debating where to put the roughly 75,000 tons of garbage generated by local households each year.

The arguments hinged on costs of dumping garbage in a landfill. Recycling — and how the city could save money doing it — was never a key part of the discussion.

That needs to change, City Council members said in the recent campaign.

“That’s where we have to focus our effort,” Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan said, “especially when you’ve got vendors coming to us saying, 'We have a plan where it will cost you nothing and possibly make you money.’ ”

The trash residents put in their green city rolling cans gets trucked to a Montgomery county landfill. The cost: $41 per ton.

The stuff people put in their brown recycling cans is hauled to a local recycling center, where private contractor FCR Inc. sorts and sells it. Greensboro gets a share of the money when the company resells the recyclables — an amount that varies every year. The cost last year: $5.03 per ton of recyclables.

“No matter how green you are, no matter how you fall politically, the dollars and cents argument — everybody can relate to it,” Wyrick said.

Greensboro’s recycling program has been ahead of other cities in North Carolina for nearly two decades in its use of rolling containers and sort-free recycling.

But there is room to do more.

The city has collected about 18,000 tons of recyclables from residents for the past three years, according to city records.

That’s less than a quarter of everything residents throw away.

Only about 60 percent of households put out a recycling can, Wyrick said.

Many condo and apartment complexes don’t have recycling bins, making it inconvenient (although not impossible) to recycle. The city is planning to add recycling cans at more than 300 multifamily units, said Sheldon Smith, who oversees the Greensboro recycling program.

City leaders also want to expand the list of items that can be recycled. The program does not accept plastic margarine tubs or yogurt containers.

Smith hopes to change that when the city renegotiates its recycling contract.

“I’m going into the dairy case,” he said.

City leaders want to reduce the fees the city pays to drop off recyclables with FCR.

The market for recyclables is booming, Wyrick said. Other vendors have suggested to city officials that they would take Greensboro’s recyclables at no fee per ton, city officials said.

The recycling contract expires in 2013, but city leaders are hoping to renegotiate sooner.

“I fully expect ... we are going to be able to realize some more savings for Greensboro,” Wyrick said.

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com