Mountains of trash and ‘cat-size’ rats as garbage workers strike in U.K.’s second largest city

After the Labour Party came into power last year following 14 years of Conservative rule, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, during his first speech on Downing Street, vowed to fix a country that had been drained of “hope, the spirit and the belief in a better future.” 

Last week, Starmer, whose party runs the Birmingham City Council and has traditionally been affiliated with unions, called the situation “completely unacceptable.”

There has been little sign that the situation will be resolved anytime soon. 

Some frustrated Birmingham residents have taken the problem into their own hands by driving to the Tyseley waste facility, where the strikes are ongoing, or other waste pits near the area to dispose of their garbage. 

But Abdul Sami, 37, said that doing so requires residents to book a slot online, and that so many had come up with the same plan that now, there were hardly any slots available to the public. 

Letters of complaint had gone unanswered, he said, adding that in April the council tax, a local levy issued by the city, had “gone up, which obviously we have to pay.” 

Others like Solomon Zia, 38, said negotiators at the council need to evaluate their own worth before looking at the garbage men. “Will those in suits come out and collect bins early in the morning?” he asked. 

In the meantime, he was learning to live with the one population in Birmingham that is thriving.

“I’m a big lad,” he said. “But I’m afraid when it comes to mice and rats, I can’t do anything.”