A proposal to overhaul the way State College collects garbage borough-wide will be up for public consideration next month.

For each residential refuse-collection customer, the proposed plan would deliver two carts -- one for "residual waste," to hold anything not deemed organic, and one for organic waste, to hold garden clippings and compostable food waste. (The effort also would expand organic-waste collection further into the commercial sector, including for bars and restaurants.)

New, automated trucks powered by natural gas would be used to collect waste from both types of carts, borough Public Service Manager Ed Holmes said in presentation Monday to council members. He said the proposal would go a long way in helping to reduce landfill-bound residual waste from the borough -- a goal approved earlier by the Borough Council.

And by combining organic- and residual-waste-collection runs, according to his presentation, the concept also could trim labor costs and greenhouse-gas emissions.

While more and more refuse from borough homes and businesses is being recycled, Holmes added, much of the landfill-bound trash is organic matter that could be composted. He said an increase in collected organic matter could be managed at the borough's yard-waste recycling facility, on the north end of the Centre Region.

Already, an 18-month food-waste-collection pilot program -- reaching a limited number of homes -- has diverted 240 tons of organic waste from the landfill, according to the borough.

The new proposal would involve about $606,000 in one-time start-up costs, though a state grant may cover as much as $250,000 of that, Holmes said. Estimated net annual savings -- through reduced fuel use, reduced labor costs and slimmer tipping fees -- are about $109,000.

Council members' initial reactions were varied at their Monday meeting, though they agreed to schedule a public hearing on the idea for Oct. 3. Complete details of the proposal will be reviewed then.

In other business at the Monday council meeting:

• The borough administration introduced two proposals for new ordinances -- one each for noise control and noise abatement. Together, they would replace the current noise-control ordinance, which sets precise decibel levels as maximum standards.

But in the dense urban environment of State College, it's often near impossible to obtain an accurate decibel measurement of any one noise source, police Chief Tom King has said. Because of that, police have long cited people for disorderly conduct -- a violation of a state code -- when they create too much noise. The maximum fine for disorderly conduct is $300.

Under the new proposed rules, fines would be $300 to $600 for the first offense, $450 to $600 for the second offense, and $600 for the third and subsequent offenses during any 180-day period. The new rules also would formally allow officers leeway to determine what's a violation. (Already, borough officers use their own discretion to determine when a noisy activity merits a disorderly-conduct citation.)

Officers, in weighing noise issues, would take into consideration the time of day, the day of week, any previous warnings and other conditions, King said. He said they would review "the totality of circumstances."

"Noise is perhaps the most important quality-of-life issue" for State College neighborhoods, Council President Ron Filippelli said. He said he's "very supportive" of "anything that gives officers" appropriate latitude to deal with the matter.

"Officers are constantly involved" in using their discretion to identity violations of law, Filippelli said. "I see it as no different in this case."

The proposals tentatively would set 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. as the window during which loud activities -- such as lawn mowing and major construction -- could be performed, though some council members said that window should be shortened to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The matter is expected to return to the council for continued discussion on Oct. 3, when members will weigh whether to ban the use of gas-powered leaf blowers as part of the measure. More public discussions on the issue are expected later in the fall.

• Council members heard an expansion proposal from the Downtown State College Improvement District Board. The board is proposing to expand the district to include a number of properties on the 500 and 400 blocks of East College Avenue, and a few others on Sowers and Hetzel streets.

In addition, the board has proposed to increase the district's millage. Under the proposal, starting next year, millage for commercial properties in the district would climb from five mills to 6.25 mills; for commercial apartments, from four mills to five mills; and for residential property, from three mills to 3.75 mills. Additional increases would be tacked on in 2017.

DID leaders said the increases are necessary to maintain the services provided through the district, which has not increased millage in a decade. In order to take effect, the millage increases and boundary changes would need to be acceptable to a 60-percent majority in the district. A public hearing on the issue is scheduled for Oct. 17.

The DID, which covers the bulk of the downtown area, levies a special property-tax assessment in order to provide special services not needed in other parts of State College. Those include outdoor cleaning, marketing and other business-promoting efforts.