The London Mayor’s draft waste strategy aims to reduce to zero the amount of waste going to landfill, in a bid to save money for councils and taxpayers and reduce the greenhouse gases of the capital’s bins.

Londoners generate four million tonnes of “municipal” rubbish from homes, some small businesses and street litter, which costs £600m a year.

Much of it goes to sites which are filling up and getting more expensive, as a result of rising taxes aimed at stopping too much waste ending up in the ground.

As well as costing money through landfill taxes, the rubbish can produce greenhouse gases such as methane as it breaks down, while recycling materials such as metal uses less energy and resources than creating new products from scratch.

The capital has the worst recycling rates in England, at 25%, a figure which is also lower than other major world cities such as Berlin, New York and Sydney.

But cutting landfill, boosting recycling and generating energy from waste could save London £90m a year, the draft strategy said.

It lays out ways the Mayor can work with boroughs to raise recycling rates, efforts to increase the number of innovative facilities to get energy from waste and measures for cleaning up the streets, cutting packaging and boosting the amount of goods which are reused or repaired.

Mr Johnson also plans to ask the Waste and Recycling Board, which he chairs, to contribute funding to help reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

Mr Johnson said: “I want to work with borough councils to harvest the massive economic potential coming from London’s waste, both to save money off the city’s bills and to improve our environment.

“This will be achieved through reducing the mounds of waste generated in the first place and expanding on the emerging trend for the reuse of household items through networks such as Freecycle.”