A NEW recycling service is being introduced to residents of 15,000 flats across the city.
They will be given plastic "survival" bags to store their recyclables. These can then be placed in communal rubbish bins before they are separated by the council.
The move will enable people living in flats to recycle paper, card, plastics and cans and should increase the amount of recycled waste in the city by two per cent.
Most city flats have no kerbside recycling service at present, forcing residents to lug boxes of rubbish to recycling points at supermarkets.
The council has received £726,000 from the Government to make it happen and in return, the council has promised to run the service for at least five years. Waste collections will continue as they are, which for most flats is on a weekly basis.
Councillor Alan Clark, portfolio holder for energy and sustainability, said: "The figures clearly show that people do recycle more if you make it nice and easy.
"It gives everybody now, whether they live in a house or flat, the ability to separate their waste and recycle easily."
He added: "We're going to run out of raw materials if we keep sending them to the incinerator or landfill."
The recycling bags are now being rolled out across the city and should all be in place by July. They will be available for all flats that have shared communal bins – whether council-owned or private.
The mixed recycling and rubbish bins will be taken away to a large recycling centre where the bags will be opened and separated.
Dan Russell, 22, who lives in a flat in Park Avenue, Mapperley Park, welcomed the news.
He said: "I don't recycle now, I just chuck everything in one bin, so the new scheme sounds great. I would definitely start recycling if it was made easy."
Adam Clarkson, 30, who lives in a flat in St Mary's Gate, in the city centre, said: "At the moment, we have one big bin for old clothes and one for everything else. Anything the council is doing to encourage recycling is very positive. I will definitely start recycling."
The city council first introduced brown recycling bins with grey lids for houses in 2007.
Last year, it ended its food waste recycling scheme and closed nine recycling sites across the city to save £342,000 per year.
The food recycling scheme was introduced two years ago as a pilot for 21,000 properties in Sneinton, The Meadows, St Ann's, Radford and The Arboretum.
Residents were given small bins for food waste, which was collected and composted. But the council said it was too expensive because the waste had to be transported to Norfolk.