Piles of black rubbish bags are filling the pavements of Birmingham, as the city deals with an ongoing bin strike.
An estimated 17,000 tonnes of waste remains uncollected, while residents have started to complain about “rats as big as cats”.
Birmingham City Council declared a major incident on Monday, saying the “regrettable” move was taken in response to public health concerns, as picket lines were blocking depots and preventing waste vehicles from collecting rubbish.
The all-out strike started on 11 March, but waste collections have been disrupted since January.
Here is everything you need to know about the strike and how long it could last.
Why are workers striking?
Members of the Unite union went out on strike due to a long-running dispute over the role of waste recycling and collection officer (WRCO) being removed.
The union claims the move will leave about 150 members £8,000 worse off.
More than 350 workers began a series of walkouts in January and decided to escalate into indefinite strike action on 11 March, citing fear over further attacks on their jobs, pay and conditions.
Unite says the dispute will not end unless the “hugely damaging” cuts to bin collectors’ wages are reversed.
The council said it scrapped the WRCO role to put the city’s waste operations in line with national practice and to improve its waste collection service.
It rebutted the union’s claims, saying that only 17 members of staff will lose a maximum amount of just over £6,000 in pay.
What have the impacts been?
Residents have complained that mounting rubbish is a risk to public health, with rotting food attracting foxes, cockroaches and rats.
One local, Fayzah Iftikhr, told Sky News correspondent Alice Porter that she has lived in Birmingham her whole life and had “never seen it like this”.
“It’s been really horrible. They haven’t been collecting our bins, and they are overflowing. It is very smelly, we have seen rats. It is not good conditions to be living in, especially in 2025,” she said.
“I was born on this street and I have never seen it like this. It is not good for anyone’s health.
“I know what they are striking for, but we are suffering, the people on our streets are suffering.”
Tim Huxtable, a Tory Birmingham City Council councillor, told Sky’s Sam Coates that it is “really getting everyone down” and not knowing when waste is going to be collected is “affecting people’s mental health”.
The strike has meant the daily rate of accumulation of uncollected waste in the city has increased from 483 tonnes per day in the week of 10 March to 655 tonnes in the week of 17 March and to almost 900 tonnes in the week of 24 March.
Normally, the city’s waste teams would make more than half a million collections in a week with 200 vehicles deployed over eight-hour daily shifts.
How long will it last?
Birmingham City Council has said it hopes for collections to return to normal “as soon as possible” but so far, talks between Unite and council officials have not been successful.
Both sides have said they are open to further negotiations.
By declaring a major incident, the council will be able to increase the availability of street cleaning and fly-tip removal with an additional 35 vehicles and crews around the city.
Another focus will be on making sure bin lorries can safely enter and exit the council’s waste depots, and exploring what further support is available from neighbouring authorities and the government.
The council website advises locals to put household waste bins out for collection as normal and leave them out until they are emptied. Recycling collections are suspended, with people told to take waste to recycling centres instead.
Council leader John Cotton said he was “determined to take every measure” to address the “very serious scenes we now see play out in certain parts of our city”.
Jim McMahon, the minister for local government, added that the government “stands ready” to respond to any request for extra resources, but insisted that any deal to end the bin strike must “maintain value for money”.
Majid Mahmood, cabinet member for environment and transport at the city council, said last week that the authority was willing to work around the clock to resolve the dispute.
The UK’s longest bin strike?
The bin strike in Birmingham is one of the longest the UK has seen in recent years, having entered its fourth week on Tuesday.
In 1970, a London bin strike lasted for around seven weeks when waste collectors walked out over pay. The army was sent in to clear away mounds of rotting rubbish.
The winter of discontent in 1978-1979 also led to rubbish piling up on the streets, as the waste collection industry joined other trade unions in demanding larger pay rises in response to government caps.
More recently, more than 200 bin workers in the Wirral went on a week-long strike in 2022, eventually securing a 15% pay rise. In the same year, a similar dispute over pay saw rubbish pile up in Edinburgh during the city’s busy festival season.
