Liverpool's Lib Dem Council is launching a new recycling service, with the roll out of new blue wheelie bins.

For the first time, residents will be able to recycle plastic and cardboard at the same time as their waste paper, glass and cans, all in the same bin.

Lib Dem executive member for the environment, Councillor Berni Turner, said: "This is a really important step forward for our recycling service. 

"We know that residents have always wanted to recycle cardboard and plastics, and I'm delighted that we now have the facilities in place to meet the demand.  

"We're hoping this new service will increase the amount of household waste residents recycle and because it's easy to use, more and more people will take advantage of the convenient service and help make this city one of the greenest in the country."

The light blue wheeled bins will be delivered to more than 100,000 households from Monday 5 March and the roll out will last for around 12 weeks.  They will replace the purple box and bag currently used.

Collections remain fortnightly but calendars and stickers will be provided to inform residents when the wheelie bin collections will start.

"We rolled out the new green wheelie bin for garden waste back in September and we've had a great response, so we're hoping for a similar reaction with the blue bins.  We want every resident to have the best facilities available to recycle as much as they can and help us to exceed our targets," added Berni.

"The government and the EU have set us challenging recycling targets and we are committed to doing everything we can to increase our recycling rate."

Around 50,000 properties across the city which have rear alleyways will stay on the purple box collection system but will also be able to recycle plastics and cardboard.  The council is currently trialling methods to improve collection systems to terraced properties and multi-occupancy properties which includes flats. 

The collections are carried out by Veolia Environmental Services (formerly Onyx UK) and the recyclable materials are taken to Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority's high-tech Materials Recovery Facility in the Wirral where it is all electronically separated into different categories and forwarded to be re-used.