Josh Sandiford
BBC News, Erdington

At the mobile collection point on Grange Road in Erdington this morning the scene is all very well-mannered.I haven’t seen any mountains of rubbish left behind for collectors, but there are plenty of people arriving with sacks of household waste.

This is quite an affluent residential road and some neighbours can be seen walking up and down with their wheelie bins.

Earlier, I spoke to Robert Alden, the Conservative leader of the opposition - he represents Erdington. He’s been speaking to residents and, perhaps unsurprisingly, told me the Labour-run council is failing the people of Birmingham.

Rob Mayor
Political reporter, West Midlands

Things were pretty sour between Unite and Birmingham City Council on Friday, but they're going to have another discussion today.

On Friday, we had the General Secretary of Unite, Sharon Graham, saying the leader of the council was "missing in action" and she hit out at the government, saying the negotiations were a farce.

Birmingham City Council says it's made a fair offer and no-one needs to lose money, so they seem quite a long way apart ahead of today's meeting.

Anna Whittaker
Reporting from Billesley

We've been hearing from residents in Billesley this morning, as they take their rubbish to a mobile collection point.

Francis McGarrity said: “They’ve got to get it sorted now because it can’t go on. I sympathise with the bin workers.

"They need to get around the table and get it sorted.”

Hollie Vinnall told us: “We haven’t had any bins collected in this whole time and there’s quite a build up around our house.

"I just hope it can be sorted amicably.

"It’s nice that there’s a community spirit feel around the mobile tips with the workers and residents trying to help each other.”

Phil Mackie
Midlands correspondent

The bin strike has highlighted the vast disparity in wealth in different parts of the city.

If you live in some of the more upmarket areas of Birmingham, other than the occasional wheelie bin which can’t close fully, you may not realise there are any problems at all.

In places like Edgbaston and Harborne, the wide streets, large houses and blossom-filled trees look magnificent in the warm spring sunshine.

The irony is that these larger properties often have fewer people living in them than the streets of small Victorian terraced houses in the most deprived neighbourhoods.

It’s districts like Ladywood, Handsworth, Balsall Heath and Ward End where the black bins are stacked high.

It’s because terraces have been turned into HMOs or have large multi-generational households. There’s more waste generated, and fewer people have cars to take their excess rubbish to the tips or mobile collection points.

If you drew an imaginary line through Birmingham along the A41 which passes through the city, that’s where some of the poorest postcodes in the country are.

These are the areas where others fly tip their excess rubbish too, and so it’s also where the largest mountains of waste have grown up.

A pest controller in Birmingham has said the piles of rubbish on the streets are a banquet for rats - and they're getting bigger as a result.

William Timms said: "They have all the protein there, so they're getting bigger. They're the size of small kittens."

He said he found one which was 22 inches (56cm) long and warned: "In a perfect habitat, which is what they're in at the moment, they give birth every three weeks. That's six to 12 pups per female, so we're going to be absolutely inundated."

Mr Timms, who said his calls have gone up by 60% since the start of the strike, advised residents to store their rubbish in outdoor sheds with hard floors so the rats were unable to get through.

Image source, Getty Images

Birmingham City Council says its waste services are in need of change - and it's not just about saving money and restructuring pay.

It says its recycling rate of 22.9% is the lowest of any unitary authority in the country, with the exception of Liverpool.

A government target of reaching 65% in the next 10 years has been set.

The council also says its seen a big jump in the amount of recycled waste which it can't use, from 11.1% in 2019-20 to 30.6% in 2023-24.

It's finding waste put in recycling bins which has been sorted into the wrong container, has not been cleaned properly or which simply can't be recycled.

It says change is needed to help people better separate their waste.

We've been speaking to bin worker Steeven Biset this morning, at the Tyseley depot, and he seems in good spirits.

Bin workers there are now being prevented from delaying the lorries, but he said: "It hasn't really deterred morale, we're here to fight to the end and hopefully keep the money they're trying to take from us".

Anna Whittaker
Reporting from Billesley

I’m in Billesley this morning where a mobile collection lorry parked alongside a mountain of rubbish. The truck wasn’t supposed to start collecting rubbish until 07:45, but residents had turned up with wheelbarrows and car loads of rubbish, so the crew started loading the bags already. Plenty of fly tipping here too - clothing, baby items and even a rocking horse.

Rob Mayor
Political reporter, Birmingham & Black Country

Image source, PA Media

Birmingham City Council says it can operate enough lorries with staff that are not on strike to collect from everyone once a week - if it can get them out of depots without delays.

We're about to find out whether it can do that or not.

Something definitely has changed: we had a lot of national attention on Birmingham last week, we had the prime minister saying the situation was completely unacceptable and the deputy prime minister was in town over the weekend.

Also, the local government minister met with the leaders of Birmingham City Council and the following day the policing operation seemed to change.

I suspect West Midlands Police may have looked at the public health situation and said "at this point we have to step in, these lorries have to be allowed to leave the depot".

Sarah Julian
BBC Radio WM, reporting from Bordesley Green

I'm in Bordesley Green this morning and there are gulls whirling overhead, I think they can smell this mountain of rubbish at the top of Colonial Road.

Next to this tree here there are dozens of bags of rubbish that have been ripped open and then it's spilling out onto the pavement.

Over on the other side is what you would describe as a mountain of rubbish I think because it's blocking the entire pavement, it's as tall as I am.

Bin bags, mattresses, bags of cat litter, there's a baby bouncer, there's all sorts there and something has been at it.

• Listen live to Sarah's show on BBC Radio WM

The industrial action started in January with a series of one-off strikes by refuse workers, but ramped up last month when members of the Unite union moved to all-out strikes.

That decision has quickly seen rubbish bags pile up on many streets across the city and it is now almost impossible to tell fly-tipping from people's rubbish, put out in the hope it will be picked up.

The dispute is over a change in the pay structure for bin workers, which the union says will cost affected workers thousands of pounds.

As the strike enters its fourth week, we're asking how this industrial action is affecting you.

Will you be taking a trip to one the city's tips now opening hours have been extended? Are you worried about the impact this could have on your and your family's health?

You can get in touch with us via Your Voice, Your BBC News.

We saw queues of traffic a mile long outside one mobile bin collection point in Birmingham last week.

They started building up on Friday when the site at Woodgate Valley Park opened at 07:45.

Birmingham City Council started operating two of these collection points some time ago - before the strike began.

They involve each bin lorry turning up at a different site each day, allowing people to dispose of any excess general waste or bulky items.

As you can imagine, they have been in-demand recently and the council has had to say they will not accept waste arriving in vans.

From today the opening hours at Birmingham's household recycling centres will be extended further into the evening.

The site at Kings Norton will stay open until 22:00 BST and the rest of the city's tips until 21:00 on weekdays.

The city council is also looking at ways to clear the backlog of rubbish on the streets and said it sent out 24 bin lorries on Sunday.

As part of the emergency measures it announced a week ago, it is exploring support it might be able to get from neighbouring authorities.

Previously, the city council has reported its bin lorries being delayed by striking workers as they tried to leave their depots, and police have been seen trying to control the situation.

But this morning, all appears calm at the Tyseley depot (pictured above) and the lorries have been leaving without problem.

Over the weekend, one BBC reporter said the scene at one of the city's mobile collection points was "orderly and good-natured".

Andy Giddings
BBC News

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage as the bin strike in Birmingham enters a fifth week.

It’s now been a week since a "major incident" was declared in Birmingham amid rising concerns of risks to public health

For the second time, Birmingham City Council has extended the opening hours of the city’s waste dumps – the site at Kings Norton will remain open until 22:00 BST with the rest of the city’s tips open until 21:00 on weekdays.

This is a dispute over pay. Unite, the union representing the striking workers, says the council is forcing some staff on to pay levels barely above the minimum wage, but the council maintains it has made a fair and reasonable offer.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner met council leaders at the weekend to discuss ways to clear the waste backlog.

Throughout today we'll be looking at the impact this is having on the city and what the main players in the dispute are saying. Stick with us.