A new twin bin scheme for Norwich is among the ambitious multi-million pound plans announced yesterday to propel the city into the top 10 recyclers in the country.

A new twin-bin scheme for Norwich is among the ambitious multi-million- pound plans announced yesterday to propel the city into the top 10 recyclers in the country.

The city is 377th out of 393 in a table of local-authority recyclers but a new strategy for dealing with waste has been drawn up in a bid to catapult Norwich up the league - with a challenging desire to eventually be among the best.

In just five years, council bosses want all 54,600 households to have recycling collections. But because of the mixed nature of housing - 34pc are detached/semi- detached, 33pc are flats and 33pc terraced housing - there is no one catch-all scheme.

Instead, various projects will be rolled out in four stages starting in October this year, including a trial of the twin- bin approach - one for recyclables and one for other rubbish collected on alternate weeks - favoured by many other councils in Norfolk.

Together with items such as paper and cardboard that are already collected from some homes in a green box, the new recycling bins will also take plastic bottles. Although glass cannot go in the new bins it will continue to be collected in the green boxes.

In places where twin bins are not feasible (such as flats), there could be bulk bins or the use of black sacks for rubbish and clear sacks for recyclables.

A budget of £1.25m this year and £1m next year has been set aside in capital funds to implement the projects - although final costs are not yet available.

Brian Morrey, executive member for development and sustainability, said: "It is something I have been fighting for since I first became a councillor in 1993.

"This is the culmination of a dream. It is so easy at the moment to just throw things in the bin and not bother about it."

The council needs to recycle 20pc of its waste by April next year and, as a result of several "quick-fix" schemes such as mini-recycling banks, it is currently at 19.8pc and will hit the target.

By 2010 the figure increases to 32pc which could not be achieved without the proposed changes.

Last year, the council collected more than 50,000 tonnes of waste with 42,533 tonnes (84.5pc) sent to landfill.

The Waste Management Strategy for Norwich has been developed with cross-party support.

It will be discussed at a meeting on Wednesday but can be viewed on the council's website at www.norwich. gov.uk