Leaves versus cardboard. Grass clippings versus plastic.

A city-appointed task force that is studying ways to revamp Lawrence’s trash and recycling system began debating Monday whether the city should place less emphasis on picking up yard waste in order to start placing more emphasis on providing a citywide curbside recycling system.

“I want to see recycling done a lot worse than I want to see yard waste picked up,” Joe Harkins, a member of the city’s Solid Waste Task Force, said at a Monday meeting of the group. “I think the yard waste service makes a great improvement to the city, but I think it is a luxury.”

Currently, the city runs a special service every Monday to pick up yard waste such as leaves and grass clippings. Every household pays for the program regardless of whether it uses the service.

Harkins said that might need to change. He suggested that the city begin charging households an extra fee to pick up the yard waste. That potentially would allow the city to take the money it currently uses for the yard waste program and fund a curbside recycling program that would be a standard part of the city’s trash service.

The city currently doesn’t have good estimates on how much it spends to operate the yard waste program, which involves running trucks through every neighborhood of the city.

“But I would think the number is sizable,” said Charlie Sedlock, a member of the task force who also is a division manager for Hamm’s area landfill operations.

The task force made no recommendations on the yard waste issue at its Monday meeting, but Mayor Aron Cromwell, who is chairman of the task force, indicated the idea would get more discussion.

“It is an interesting point,” Cromwell said.

Changing the yard waste program could help the city offer a curbside recycling program without creating a major increase in monthly trash rates. The task force has been contemplating that monthly trash rates could increase by anywhere from $4 to $8 per month if a curbside recycling program was made a standard part of the city’s trash service. One scenario under consideration by the task force would require all households to pay for the curbside program regardless of whether they used the system.

Some task force members on Monday balked at that philosophy, saying the costs could be burdensome to some low-income households.

City staff members, though, long have expressed concern about changing the yard waste program. They noted that before the city began offering the program, yard clippings and leaves made up a large percentage of all the trash that was going into the landfill.

Traditionally landfills have not liked to accept yard waste because once covered, the debris breaks down in a way that it releases large amounts of methane gas. In fact, a representative with Waste Management Solutions told the task force that she thought more states would begin placing regulations on the ability of landfills to accept yard waste.

But Sedlock said he disagrees with that assessment. He said as more landfills begin installing systems to collect methane gas to convert it into energy, yard waste could become a benefit to landfills. He pointed to a landfill in Columbia, Mo., that now is encouraging yard waste to be taken to the landfill because it makes its gas collection systems operate more efficiently and because the yard waste ultimately breaks down and doesn’t eat up much of the landfill’s storage capacity.

Sedlock confirmed Monday that Hamm, which operates the landfill the city currently uses, is in the process of hiring a vendor to install a gas collection system. He anticipates that project will be operational in about two years.

Task force members are expected to deliver a set of recommendations to city commissioners by early next year. City commissioners will have the final say on any changes made to the city’s trash or recycling systems.