It won't be easy to do both.

Officials say they don't plan to resume citywide, city-funded yard-waste pickup -- a promise made in the recent campaign for a city income-tax increase -- until early 2010.

That leaves Columbus residents few options if they want their leaves hauled away: the environmentally unfriendly route of sending them to the landfill with the weekly trash, or the financially unfriendly route of paying $49.50 in October for six months of service through the program that replaced city-funded pickup in April.

Depending on when city government starts paying the yard-waste tab again, subscribers could end up shelling out twice: out of their pockets, and out of their paychecks. About 13,000 Columbus households are signed up for yard-waste service through Rumpke Inc., which also receives a $1 million city subsidy.

Mayor Michael B. Coleman vowed in the tax-hike campaign that increasing the income tax would put yard-waste pickup back on the list of services paid entirely out of the tax-fueled general fund.

But spokesman Dan Williamson said last week that the mayor's promise was to restore yard-waste service "eventually," not immediately. Williamson defined eventually as late this winter or early next spring.

Assistant Public Service Director Rick Tilton said the city will honor its Rumpke contract, which runs through April 2010. He wouldn't say, however, whether that means citywide service won't be restored until the contract expires.

Rumpke also had the contract for citywide pickup, which provided weekly service at every Columbus curbside to keep grass clippings, leaves and other organic waste out of the Franklin County landfill. Coleman and City Council members killed the program in February to help balance the 2009 budget.

The income-tax increase, from 2 percent to 2.5 percent on everyone who works in Columbus, was approved by voters on Aug. 4 and takes effect Oct. 1. Coleman's 2010 budget proposal will be submitted to City Council members in mid-November.

Neighborhood leaders and environmental advocates said they wish city leaders would keep their promise sooner rather than later.

In Clintonville, residents worry that people will dump their leaves in neighborhood ravines, said D Searcy, chairwoman of the Clintonville Area Commission. Searcy said she wonders whether some people might rake their leaves to the curb out of habit, not realizing that the city won't take them away.

Either disposal method is harmful, said Brandi Whetstone, conservation program coordinator for the Ohio chapter of the Sierra Club. Leaves left curbside eventually will wash into storm sewers and make their way to local waterways, where elevated levels of organic waste reduce water quality.

Yard waste could end up in the landfill, too. Although Ohio bans it from landfills, the law applies only to loads that are solely yard waste. City law prohibits tossing yard waste into automated-pickup containers, but crews don't check the contents.

"It would definitely be preferable for collection to come back this fall," Searcy said.

rvitale@dispatch.com