Traders at Surrey Street market are hoping to save as much as £50,000 by working with the council to recycle.

It is estimated the market generates 700 tonnes of waste every year, and in roughly £100 per tonne in landfill charges, in addition to the cost of storage and collection, the annual waste bill for Surrey Street is tens of thousands of pounds.

About 30 percent of the market's rubbish each day is cardboard, which will begin to be collected at the end of July. In total, as much as 80 percent of the total waste could eventually be able to be recycled or composted.

Rossana Lovett who represents the market traders, said: "We hope this will be an environmentally friendly way to cut our waste costs."

Market Inspector Fiona Woodcock, added: "I am delighted we are going to be making good use of all this waste.

"Anyone who needs cardboard boxes can always still come down and ask us for some though, and there is loads of other packaging that could be reused if people want to be inventive."

The council hope by March 2012, the market will be recycling the vast majority of its waste, with plans to build on carboard collections with the collection of food waste by the end of next March.

Councillor Phil Thomas, cabinet member for environment and highways, said: "Many of our residents are already regular recyclers and I'm pleased that we have been able to work out a practical method of helping our market traders to follow suit."