Call to halt rollout of fortnightly bin collections in Birmingham

Residents are being forced to endure enormous piles of rubbish bags, overflowing bins and fears over rats as the city remains gripped by the strike.

The industrial action, which started earlier this year in January, was triggered by a dispute between the Labour-run Birmingham City Council and Unite the union over the scrapping of a certain role.

As residents and high-profile political figures express deep concern over the state of the city, Conservative councillors have recently requested that the controversial move from weekly to fortnightly bin collections be suspended until 2026.

From next month, the city council is planning for neighbourhoods across the city to transition in phases to fortnightly collections of household rubbish.

But in a letter addressed to Majid Mahmood, the council’s cabinet member for environment, the Conservative councillors recently wrote that Brummies are already grappling with “significant disruption and uncertainty”.

“Adding a major overhaul to collection schedules will exacerbate an already untenable situation for households across the city,” the opposition shadow cabinet continued.

“For families, elderly residents, and those in flats with limited storage, managing waste is already a daily struggle.

“Introducing fortnightly collections amidst this burden would create a double whammy, forcing residents to store twice as much residual waste with no guarantee of when – or if – it will be collected.”

They went on to argue that switching to fortnightly collections mid-strike “feels like piling one uncertainty atop another”.

“We urge you to pause this plan until the industrial action is settled, the streets are cleaned and normal service resumes,” the Conservative councillors added.

“We believe that summer of 2026 is the earliest possible practical timeframe to allow the council to properly plan for this.

“Give residents a chance to adjust without the added stress of overflowing bins.”

A spokesperson for the council said today, March 24, that the authority is still “considering its options on delaying the rollout of the transformation of the waste service as a result of strike action from Unite”.

They also explained that the move to a fortnightly collection of household rubbish would be introduced alongside weekly food waste collections and a second recycling bin specifically for recycling paper and cardboard.

The spokesperson continued that this would increase the amount of waste recycled and comply with the Environment Act 2021.

“Introducing food waste collections will mean people have less general waste, as this represents around 30 per cent of what is thrown away,” they said.

“Other additional bins for recycling will also provide residents with more capacity to increase our recycling rates.

“Most councils undertake fortnightly collections, and making this change, along with these other improvements, will provide the residents of Birmingham with a better waste collection service that is in line with other councils.”

A delay would be a setback for the crisis-hit council, which has described plans to transform waste collection as a key part of its recovery plan and a way to both significantly reduce costs and improve reliability.

Why are the bins strike happening?

Unite organised the Birmingham bins strike amid the council’s plans to scrap the Waste Recycling and Collection Officer role, which the union described as “safety-critical”.

“The council could end this dispute tomorrow by agreeing to pay a decent rate of pay,” Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab recently said.

“The council is forcing dedicated workers onto pay levels barely above the minimum wage while undertaking a difficult and highly demanding job in all weathers.”

He continued: “Disruption to Birmingham’s refuse service will further deteriorate but this is the fault of a heartless council which has slashed pay without a thought to the affect it is having on workers and their families.”

The city council said it had made a “fair and reasonable offer” to Unite and alternatives have been offered to the “small number of workers whose wages are impacted ongoing by the changes to the service”.

“Residents of Birmingham want and deserve a better waste collection service and the restructure that Unite is opposing is part of the much-needed transformation of the service,” a council spokesperson said.

The authority added that its routes and working practices are fully risk-assessed and that health and safety is “everyone’s responsibility”.

According to external auditors, issues and missteps which contributed to the council’s financial turmoil include the equal pay debacle, inadequate budget setting, poor service management, demand led pressures and the disastrous implementation of a new IT system.

Labour councillors have also pointed to the impact of funding cuts over the past decade or so and how local authorities of all political stripes are struggling across the country.