SOUTHAMPTON’S first-ever glass collection service is set to be introduced this autumn.

The introduction of kerbside collections across the city is expected to be approved on July 16.

If the council’s director for environment and economy rubberstamps the plans, the new collections will be rolled out from October.

And all houses in Southampton are expected to have the service by September next year.

Boxes will be used to collect glass from most city homes, and small recycling banks and wheelie bins will be used for flats and parts of the city with a high density of houses of multiple occupation (HMOs).

The first phase of the scheme’s introduction will see small glass recycling banks or wheeled bins introduced near to flats and HMO-heavy areas at the end of October.

The collection service will then be introduced to houses across the city in two phases – one in January to March 2014, and the second in June to August 2014.

City centre homes will be the last to see the service, as council bosses want to see how the scheme works in other areas before they decide how to introduce it there.

The collections will be funded for the next three years by part of the £8.28m Government grant the city council received last year.

That grant from the Weekly Collection Support Scheme fund also ensured weekly refuse collections would be saved in the city.

Now £845,000 of that grant will be used to buy new collection vehicles, boxes and banks for the glass service until March 31.

Civic bosses believe after then the cost of the service will be met by income from recycled glass and a reduction in waste disposal costs.

Large glass recycling skips dotted around the city in council and supermarket car parks will also be replaced with smaller banks which council officers say will be quieter to use, more attractive and more cost-effective to empty.

Council leader Simon Letts said the new scheme means the city will have its most comprehensive recycling and waste collection service ever.

He said: “We have never had any way of doorstep glass recycling and of course because of its weight glass is a big component of what people throw out.

“So it will make a big contribution to our recycling rates.

“Particularly for elderly people, for whom it can be quite difficult to shift glass, this is really for the convenience of the residents of the city and to make it as easy as possible for them to recycle things that they use in their daily lives.”