This morning, Gainesville residents can tell the City Council what they think about a proposal to change their trash service.

The council will allow public comment at its 9 a.m. meeting on a proposal to cut city trash service to a once-a-week curbside pickup and discontinue a contracted recycling service.

A proposal made by city staff last week would bring residents’ recycling service in-house and bring an end to the city’s twice-a-week back-door pickup service.

The plan calls for an up-front investment of about $425,000 — costs that would allow the city to provide residents with a 96-gallon container they could roll to the curb and to fit trash collection trucks with equipment that will lift the receptacles and dump their contents into the trucks.

In the end, however, the change would allow the city to provide the service with fees alone and without help from the city’s general fund, which operates mainly with tax dollars. City officials also are hoping the change would encourage residents to recycle more.

Under a proposal made by Gainesville Public Works Director David Dockery last week, residents who do not have someone physically able to roll the can to the curb could get a medical waiver signed by a doctor and continue the back-door trash service. The waiver would need to be renewed annually.