Mountains of garbage blight one aspect of Birmingham road amid bin strikes – whereas different aspect of the street is spotless
Residents of a leafy Birmingham suburb have been divided into the binned and binned-nots due to a frustrating quirk in the city boundaries.
On one side of Chelworth Road in Birmingham, the pavement is immaculately kept but directly opposite, on the verge run by the bankrupt city council, it is swimming in filth.
Sacks of leaking refuse are piled up high on top of one another making the walkway completely impassable.
There are no such problems on the other side of the road which falls under the care of Worcestershire County Council.
The enormous pile up should have been collected last Friday but has remained in place over the weekend due to the strike.
Nearly 400 council bin workers in Birmingham began indefinite strike action last week as part of a row over jobs and pay.
Some residents claim that due to the strike the city is being overrun with rodents with some ‘rats becoming the size of cats.’
On the frontline of the Birmingham bin crisis, things look bleak.
Residents of a leafy Birmingham suburb have been divided into the binned and binned-nots due to a frustrating quirk in the city boundaries
Sacks of leaking refuse are piled up high on top of one another making the walkway completely impassable
Speaking to the Birmingham Mail, frustrated residents of Chelworth Road claimed that the mountain of rubbish had become a haven for pests.
Inna Pedryc, 60, said: ‘They haven’t collected the recycling since January and the general waste has not been collected for three weeks – it’s awful, foxes and rats rip the bags.
‘I put my bin bags out on Friday outside my home so maybe it’s been added to the mountain.’
Mohammad Abdulalla, 37, added: ‘We put the rubbish on the pile.
‘It’s not good, it’s getting very big and annoying.’
Last week, a waste collection in the city descended into chaos as rubbish-laden residents swarmed a bin lorry.
The lorry was besieged by so many people as it attempted to clear piles of rotting waste in the affluent Mosely suburb on Wednesday that a local councillor resorted to calling police.
West Midlands Police said two people have been arrested this week in connection to the ongoing industrial action, which escalated from a series of one-day walk outs to an all-out strike last Tuesday.
A week on, and a mobile collection – a bin lorry in a static location allowing residents whose bins aren’t being collected to drop their rubbish off – triggered what one observer called a ‘binmageddon’.
Citizens turned up in cars filled with black bags of rubbish which they were desperate to dispose of.
The BBC reported that people were seen rushing down the streets to the wagon carrying multiple bags.
Others were seen running down the middle of the road with their wheelie bins, desperate to unload them.
Cars loaded with rubbish were seen parked in the neighbourhood as police yelled at people not to dump their rubbish in the street.
The extraordinary scenes unfolded on the streets of Birmingham when the lorry was spotted
The lorry was besieged by so many people as it attempted to clear rotting waste in Mosely that a local councillor resorted to calling police
Citizens turned up in cars filled with black bags of rubbish they were desperate to dispose of
Officers called the collection off early as tempers flared and the lorry reached capacity.
One resident on Anderton Park Road, Kazia Bi, told MailOnline that piles of rubbish remained outside properties along her road.
‘Cars from other areas turned up yesterday and the drivers were dropping off their rubbish. It meant I couldn’t get rid of my own refuse, which was last collected a fortnight ago. But I don’t blame those drivers for doing what they did, everybody is in the same boat and desperate to get rid of their waste.’
Ms Bi, a 40-year-old customer services associate, said residents’ recycling waste is not being collected at all at the moment.
‘I daren’t put my hand in that (recycling) bin’, she added. ‘The rubbish has been in there for weeks.’
Like many residents, Ms Bi has been taking bags full of refuse and recycling to the tip. But she said householders are restricted to only two visits a week.
Another resident, called Hafeeza, told the BBC on Wednesday: ‘People who aren’t residents are parking up and leaving rubbish outside of my house. It was very noisy with people honking, it wouldn’t be a problem if they were doing it in a decent way but the people who came here didn’t care.’
People were seen running down the middle of the road with their wheelie bins or following the lorry in their cars to unload their rubbish
Ongoing strikes by refuse collectors have reportedly led to rats becoming the size of cats
One expert warned that ‘rotting food is an absolute banquet’ as the city’s rat population surges
The rat infestation has become so bad the rodents have been dubbed the Squeaky Blinders because they appear to have the city in their grip – much like the Peaky Blinders gang of the late nineteenth century which inspired the BBC drama series of the same name.
This morning, another mobile collection was taking place in the Bordesley Green suburb, where a stench of rotting food was said to be hanging in the air.
Nearly 400 council bin workers in Birmingham began indefinite strike action last week as part of a row over jobs and pay. And when MailOnline visited the city to gauge the extent of the rat problem, reporters found one dead rodent more than a foot long.
The huge rat had been dead for a few days and was spotted lying near a discarded mop and bucket behind a row of shops in the Sparkbrook neighbourhood.
As we held up the rodent with a litter picker to measure it, a local walked past and said: ‘Trust me, that’s not a big one. We get them much bigger!’
The Unite union says its members face pay cuts after the scrapping of waste collection and recycling officer roles. But Labour-run Birmingham City Council says its offer is ‘fair and reasonable’.
Birmingham City Council has said the ‘escalation’ of industrial action will mean greater disruption to residents despite a ‘fair and reasonable offer’ made to Unite members.
The council also disputes Unite’s claims that 150 workers could lose £8,000 per year in pay, and insists plans to restructure the service are a crucial part of the authority’s efforts to become financially sustainable.
