Thursday marks six months since all-out strikes by bin workers began in Birmingham
One resident said there had been six months of "absolute chaos" in the city
Meanwhile in Castle Vale, locals tell BBC Radio WM they have seen so many rats that they have started naming them
Members of the Unite union recently voted to extend their industrial action until March 2026
The union's leader, Sharon Graham, said: "Our members are resolute in their determination to win this dispute"
The dispute was initially focused on the removal of a waste collection role, as part of an overhaul of services, which the union said would mean a loss of £8,000 a year for some staff
The future of bin lorry drivers' pay has also come under the spotlight
Walking out of negotiations in July, the council said it had "reached the absolute limit" of what it could offer
Our in-depth explainer looks at the background to the strike and other useful information
Elizabeth Glinka
Political Editor, BBC Midlands
We will be continuing the discussion about the bin strike on this week's Politics Midlands when I'll be joined by Onay Kasab, national lead organiser from the Unite union and veterans minister Al Carns.
I'll be asking them what it would take to bring the strike to an end.
You can watch it on BBC One in the region on Sunday at 10:00 and afterwards on BBC iPlayer.
Alexander Brock
Local Democracy Reporting Service
Fly-tipping in areas of Birmingham had left the city "blighted", said Liberal Democrat councillor Baber Baz.
“Street after street, community after community, is suffering from dumped waste,” he said.
“Residents in Yardley West and Stechford Ward deserve clean, safe streets, not neighbourhoods scarred by rubbish.”
Birmingham City Council said previously that its contingency plan meant that all properties in the city should receive one collection every week and that street cleaning crews were being deployed to hotspot areas.
“When fly-tipping occurs, we act as quickly as possible,” it also said recently.
“Our crews clear hundreds of fly-tipping reports each week, this is in addition to the work our neighbourhood crews undertake to clean up across the city.
“We are committed to prosecuting fly-tippers whenever possible, and we encourage residents to provide reports and evidence for us to do so.”
Tania Sangha
BBC Midlands Today
An anonymous "binfluencer" called dailyrubbish has been litter picking in Birmingham today.
He has more than 118,000 followers on TikTok, external and 112,000 on Instagram, external - he posts videos of him travelling to different locations to pick up rubbish.
He isn't from Birmingham, but travelled more than 60 miles to Main Street in Sparkbrook after a request from a follower.
Despite travelling across the country, he says the worst litter he has come across has been in Birmingham, and it was particularly bad on Ladywood Road.
"I knew what to expect but it was even more shocking… there were bin bags piled half as tall as the house, loads of flies around them," he said.
"There was that smell, it’s just unbelievable."
With Birmingham's recycling rate even before the strike standing at just over 22%, there were doubts about how it could make the government target of 65% by 2035.
Fifty miles away, Stratford-on-Avon District Council is leading the way. It is using an automated processing facility to recycle 61% of all waste generated by residents.
What's more they don't need to sort it out into individual containers.
Katie Thompson
BBC News
If you cast your mind back to March, you might remember some frantic scenes in Moseley, where residents swarmed a mobile household waste collection lorry desperate to get rid of their rubbish (pictured below).
They flocked down the streets with their wheelie bins and black bags in tow and such was the demand, police were called due to safety fears and the service was halted.
I've not seen such chaotic collections since then. If you go to a mobile service now, it's relatively quiet and orderly.
Whether this is due to less people needing to dispose of their waste or the timetables of this service being rather hard to find, is hard to know.
As for weekly household waste collections, these seem to be running pretty smoothly in most areas, and if your bin isn't collected on your usual day, it tends to be picked up soon after.
The same cannot be said for recycling and garden waste though, which remains suspended.
Image source, PA MediaThis picket line was photographed in March
It's easy to forget how the strike started. Here's a recap.
Recycling rates in Birmingham have traditionally been among the worst in the country. Last year a little over 22% of rubbish in Birmingham was recycled, compared with an England average of 44% in 2023-24.
In the face of this, the council announced a shake-up of waste services. Among the measures was the removal of a bin crew role - the Waste Recycling and Collection Officer - taking each team down from four to three.
The Unite union says these posts, better paid than other bin lorry loaders, are also safety critical - a point the council disputes.
The row grew with wildly different numbers quoted by both sides on the number of staff affected and the amount of money they would lose.
Many bin lorry drivers went on strike in support of their colleagues, but it soon emerged their own pay would come under review by the local authority
Talks mediated by independent conciliation service Acas held out some hope for a resolution, but ended with the council walking out in July, saying it could not improve its offer, partly due to fears it could open itself up to more equal pay claims.
Irfan Mehboob is head of community facilities at the Pioneer group housing association, which has about 2,500 properties in the Castle Vale, Stechford and Stockland Green areas.
He said their estates team had been going "above and beyond" to keep areas clean.
"It's important because we want to keep Castle Vale clean and safe.
"We are the landlord," he explained, "it's just the right thing to do".
"The residents are very grateful for the work we're doing," he added.
"We receive a lot of compliments about the team".
Alexander Brock
Local Democracy Reporting Service
The council’s cabinet member for environment, Majid Mahmood, was quizzed just this week about new recycling figures, which show just 15.45% of rubbish in the city was being recycled during the first quarter of 2025-26 (April to June).
He told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that they “weren’t surprising” due to recycling collections being suspended during the strike.
“It also shows the ineffectiveness of the current recycling service before the industrial action,” he said.
“This is something we have known for years – the simple fact is we’re not where we need to be on recycling.
“That’s why we want to implement our transformation programme.”
David Gregory-Kumar
Science, environment & rural affairs correspondent, BBC Midlands Today
We asked the city council for some figures around recycling rates before the strike and afterwards.
Rubbish going into landfill has gone up, it used to be about 2.84% and now that's gone up to 5.8% for the period of 1 January to 30 June - that's basically doubled.
The thing about that is when we send waste to landfill we have to pay tax on it - and for household waste that's £126 per tonne.
And if you're sending, as Birmingham is, 13,781 tonnes to landfill that's £1.7m they're paying in tax.
Some recycling is still happening, I presume because people are taking it to a tip, that is just over 13%.
The city's recycling rate is not great at the best of times - it was 22.7% for the same period in 2024 and now it's dropped down to 13.24%, but it shows people are trying.
Image source, EPA“We know the city's recycling rates need to improve which is why the improved waste collection service will introduce an extra recycling bin," the city council said.
“Due to industrial action we have had to suspend the kerbside recycling collection but in order to support residents to recycle as much as possible we extended the opening hours of our household recycling centres and the mobile waste centres, with the latter focusing on hotspot areas."
Vanessa Pearce
BBC News
Earlier we brought you the story of pensioner Lorraine Boyce, who has been storing a mound of recycling in her home the council is unable to collect.
The pensioner told us she believed in recycling and, as a point of principle, would not put it in with general waste.
But as she lives alone without a car, she is unable to take it to the tip herself.
We've been contacted by a few people via our Your Voice,Your BBC News team offering to pick up her rubbish to take it to the recycling centre.
One of them, Adam Simcox, said he had had to do various trips to the tip to dispose of garden waste and rubbish.
"But as a driver I am able to do that," he said.
"I would be happy to take all her recycling to the tip for her," he added.
You can contact us via the site:
·Email: bbcyourvoice@bbc.co.uk, external
·WhatsApp: +44 7756 165803 , external
Image source, Waseem ZaffarOne of the key features of this strike has not just been photos of overflowing wheelie bins, but also the amount of fly-tipping - and it's not always easy to tell the difference.
In July, the city council said reports of fly-tipping had almost doubled since the strike began.
Only a few days ago, Lozells Labour councillor Waseem Zaffar said he had reported 41 instances of fly-tipping on Sunday in his area alone.
Joshua Giltrap
BBC Radio WM, reporting from Kingstanding
One worker I've been speaking to claims residents are burning their recycling waste, just to get rid of it.
Josh Taylor at Evolution Vaping in Kingstanding said the ongoing dispute was "causing issues everywhere".
Image source, EPA"You see piles of rubbish being set on fire because no one's collecting them," he said.
"It's getting out of hand and it just needs to be sorted.
"I can definitely feel that it's messier because the wind picks the rubbish up, and on my street it's definitely dirtier."
Image source, EPATypical bin lorries in the UK are classed as heavy and large goods vehicles and their drivers earn on average £38,337, according to the ONS.
In Birmingham, they are on a scale from £33,366 to £40,476.
Read more: How much do bin workers get paid?
BBC Radio WM
Some more views from callers to BBC Radio WM on the strike:
Dave in Rubery: "My dad went to our tip, which is run by Bromsgrove Council, the other day. Nearly everyone there was bringing green waste recycling for family in Brum."
From Paul in Tamworth: "Birmingham's reputation is fine, but the council's, bin workers' and the union's reputations might not be. The people make the city not an industrial dispute."
John adds: "Why is it always the workers who have to lose money to make up for the mismanagement of the council? It's the council managers who bankrupted the council by not sorting out equal pay awards."It's the council managers who messed up with the new computer system that cost millions, yet as always these managers are not taking pay cuts it's the little people who are having to lose money."
Chloe Hughes
BBC News, West Midlands
Here are some photos from the past few months - our coverage has captured some of the dispute's biggest moments.
This is the first day of action, on 6 January - the start of the long-running dispute. It would be another two months before the Unite members went on all-out strikes.
An overflowing skip on 11 March.
Around this time, residents said the rubbish was "alive", reporting sightings of rats.
Image source, EPAA pile of rubbish waiting to be collected on 3 April.
Image source, PA MediaThis picture was taken in April - showing the extent of the pile-up on residential streets.
The so-called "megapicket" on 9 May at the Lifford Lane depot in Kings Norton.
Maksood Altaf packed his rubbish into his family car, including the wheelie bin in April before he went to the mobile tip in Billesley.
“I’ve padded out the car with cardboard so nothing leaks out," he said.
While Unite have been pushing for the government to intervene and settle the dispute, the government has said it is for the union to "urgently end this strike".
"It has caused untold misery and disruption to the people of Birmingham and its end is long overdue," a spokesperson from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said.
"Unite should instead focus on working with the council on a way forward to tackle the long-standing equal pay issues, rather than undermining the lives of people in the city."
Rachael Lewis
BBC Radio WM
At the Perry Barr depot this week, workers on the picket line said they had become “like family” after spending six months standing on the side of the road together.
One striking worker and unite representative at Perry Barr was Luke Dalton - who has been a bin worker in Birmingham for eight years, starting first as a loader and progressing to a driver.
He described the past six months as having lots of “ups and downs”.
"We understood modernisation and why that’s had to change, I get that, but never expected it to be at the cost of peoples livelihoods," he said.
"There are people out here who are going to have to sell their houses, move properties, because they are just not going to be able to sustain their life any more."
Mr Dalton added that he felt “stressed” because "you don’t know where you stand".
Rachael Lewis
BBC Radio WM
For some striking workers, the uncertainty of strike action has meant they have had to move back in with family members.
Dane Vickers, 36, has been working as a Birmingham City Council refuse worker for 10 years.
The rent for his property went up earlier this year, and he and his wife had to make the decision to move in with her family, rather than renewing it as normal.
"I couldn’t take the risk, knowing the landlord was going to up the rent. We made the decision to move in with her dad," he said.
"This action has cost me the house that I lived in.”
Alexander Brock
Local Democracy Reporting Service
Heaps of bin bags, litter in the street, dead rodents on pavements – the impact of Birmingham’s bins strike are still clear to see as it reaches a bleak milestone.
A tour around some of Birmingham’s neighbourhoods this week reveals there are areas still blighted by rubbish issues despite the Labour-run city council’s waste collection improving compared to the height of the strike.
One such place is Cherrywood Road in the Bordesley Green area, where I was greeted by a large dead rat lying next to the pavement as rubbish was cleared from outside homes.
“Residents have frequently contacted the council requesting clean-ups and the collection of black bags but without success,” resident Gerry Moynihan claims.
“The sight of scurrying rats is now commonplace and dead rats are frequently removed by residents – how much more can residents suffer?”
One local in Cherrywood Road told me that rubbish repeatedly piles up outside his home, adding his grandson no longer opens the window due to the amount of flies.
Ed James
BBC Radio WM
Steve, who is part of the men's wellbeing group that meets at the centre in Castle Vale, says he is "fed up" with the strike.
"Carboard is the one thing I have an issue with."
"You can take it to the tip, but who wants to do that every week? So what I’ve been doing is burning it in the incinerator in the back garden, it’s the only way I can get rid of it."
"I’ve been recycling since I was 15 years old and I’m 75 now, and it really goes against the grain," says Ken, another member of the group.
"Birmingham, now they have stopped recycling, they’ve taken us back to the 1970s when everything used to go in the same bin."
He said to resolve the dispute, he would "sack all the senior managers" at the authority as "that would save some money".
"The current CEO of Birmingham City Council's salary is £295,000 per year, I wonder if with this reorganisation, she would be willing to take a 25% pay cut, along with the 12 other senior managers."