The full City Council and Mayor R.T. Rybak approved a plan on Friday to move forward with a single-sort recycling system for the city. The plan had previously been approved by the Transportation and Public Works subcommittee.

The council directed public works staff to hash out the details, including sources of financing and a plan to communicate changes to residents prior to the roll out of the new system sometime next year.

The switch from seven-sort recycling to single-sort has the potential to almost double the amount of waste Minneapolis residents recycle, from 18.1 percent to 32 percent, studies suggest. This is mainly due to the ease of placing all recyclables in one container, thus encouraging current non-recyclers to participate and current recyclers to increase their contribution.

The city says that the single-sort system would work well with a possible expansion of recycling to include multi-unit housing and to add organics recycling at some point.

Click here to read the public works department's recommendation to the city council.

Click here to read a 47-page report commissioned by the city that compared single-sort recycling with dual-sort.