Some 5,000 green wheelie bins have been bought by the city council so households can be offered a £30-a-year garden waste recycling scheme.
Leicester City Council wants people to have the option of having rubbish such as leaves, trimmings, and grass collected from the kerbs outside their homes.
Under the proposed service the waste would be collected fortnightly on Mondays - a day when no other rubbish collections are made in the city.
There will be no changes to any other existing waste collection services.
The council says the green waste collections, to run from March to October, have been requested by residents foe a number of years.
The cost of buying the bins has been met from a £870,000 Government Weekly Collection Support Scheme grant secured by the council.
Assistant mayor for neighbourhood services councillor Sarah Russell said: "We know people want this because they have been asking us for it but we don't have a projected take up.
"It could be anything from 2,000 to 10,000 but it will probably be lower in year one than in subsequent years."
Coun Russell said 5,000 bins had already been purchased using £25,000 from the one-off Government grant. More bins can be bought if needed.
She said the £30 annual charge had been set at that level to ensure the council broke even on the cost of making the collections.
She added: "We are constantly looking at ways that we can develop and improve our waste and recycling collection in Leicester.
"Because we have maintained our commitment to weekly collections, we are now able to use money from our successful bid to the Weekly Collection Support Scheme to cover set up costs for additional services like the new green waste collection.
"The new service will be entirely optional, and ideally suited to keen gardeners. This is a service that people have been asking for some time and I am very pleased that we are now able to introduce it."
Some householders currently take their garden waste to city tips while others place cuttings and grass in their black wheelie bins despite being discouraged from doing so by the council.
The waste placed in green bins will be taken to a plant at Wanlip on the edge of the city for processing and composting.
Keen gardener Joe Appleton, 55, from Aylestone, said: "At last. I'll certainly be getting a green bin. My brother lives in Birmingham where they've had a scheme like this for ages and its about time we caught up.
"I think it will be really useful for a lot of people."
The new service is due to be introduced in March 2014.
A special introductory rate of £20 for the first year of the scheme will be available for people signing up before the end of February.
People will be able to order more than one bin at a cost of £15 each.
The council will retain ownership of the bins.
