told The i Paper he has seen 22in-long rats<\/a>, which are thriving as a result of the strike.<\/p>\n![\"Undated](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SEI_246294814.jpg\")
Rubbish in the street outside Ward End Park, Birmingham (Photo: PA Wire) ![\"Undated](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SEI_246294822.jpg\")
Birmingham residents say they have had to think outside the box amid the bin strike as getting a slot at a tip is like \u2018winning a lottery\u2019 (Photo: PA Wire)<\/p>\n
Rat populations can grow extremely quickly \u2013 the rodents become sexually mature at two months old and give birth every three weeks to between six and 12 babies.<\/p>\n
Timms added that it is a perfect habitat for the rats to breed \u2013 and seeing as they give birth every three weeks, Birmingham residents are set to be \u201cabsolutely inundated\u201d by rats over the coming days.<\/p>\n
Health Secretary Wes Streeting expressed concern about the public health situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the bin bags are piling up, we see rats and other vermin crawling around,\u201d he told Times Radio. \u201cThat\u2019s not good for public health. I think this dispute has escalated way out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it is \u201ctotally unacceptable\u201d that the dispute has seen bin lorries blocked from leaving the depot.<\/p>\n
![\"Rubbish](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SEI_246699344.jpg\")
Rubbish piles up on a residential street in Birmingham (Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth\/AP Photo)![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SEI_245911181.jpg\")
Furniture and uncollected refuse bags in Yardley, east Birmingham (Photo: Jacob King\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand industrial disputes happen. I understand people have the right to withdraw their labour. That\u2019s part and parcel of industrial relations in our country. But what is not acceptable is allowing these sorts of unsanitary conditions to occur on people\u2019s streets,\u201d Streeting added.<\/p>\n
The city council declared a major incident on 31 March because of the impact and talks between local government and Unite are continuing in an effort to break the deadlock.<\/p>\n
Talks on Tuesday between the city council and Unite the Union aimed at resolving an all-out strike by refuse collectors ended with \u201cno resolution\u201d a Unite spokesperson told Sky News. <\/p>\n
A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: \u201cThe talks with Unite were productive, but there are still a number of issues to resolve. We are looking forward to continuing with negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local Government Secretary Angela Rayner met council leader John Cotton at the weekend.<\/p>\n
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has offered its support to the strikers and said its members will not step in to help clear rubbish.<\/p>\n
![\"Rubbish](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SEI_246696655.jpg\")
Rubbish piles up on a residential street in Birmingham (Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth\/AP)<\/p>\n
The daily rate of uncollected waste accumulation in Birmingham has risen from 483 tonnes per day in the week commencing 10 March to 655 a day the following week, to almost 900 in the week of 24 March.<\/p>\n
Refuse collection teams normally make over half a million collections a week.<\/p>\n
Long queues have been building up outside mobile bin collection points in the city, and household recycling centres have extended their hours.<\/p>\n
Birmingham City Council\u2019s website says that residents should continue to put their household waste out on their normal collection day, but recycling collections are suspended so those bins should not be put out. <\/p>\n
The council has said it has made a \u201cvery fair offer\u201d to Unite, and that it hopes bin collections will be back to normal \u201cas soon as possible,\u201d but talks with the union have not yet been successful.<\/p>\n
\nA timeline of the Birmingham bin strikes <\/p>\n
6 January:\u00a0<\/strong>Refuse workers represented by the Unite union go on strike over a long-running dispute over the role of waste recycling and collection officer (WRCO) being removed. <\/p>\n3 February:\u00a0<\/strong>The industrial action is initially supposed to last for 12 days over four months, but Unite announces that it will be intensified, with 12 days taking place in February. <\/p>\n26 February:\u00a0<\/strong>A further escalation is announced. <\/p>\n11 March:\u00a0<\/strong>350 refuse workers begin an indefinite, all-out strike. <\/p>\n27 March:\u00a0<\/strong>Talks collapse between Birmingham City Council and Unite, with the local authority threatening compulsory redundancy for those who have \u201cdeclined all offers on the table\u201d.<\/p>\n31 March:\u00a0<\/strong>Birmingham City Council declares a major incident, saying that this is in response to a risk to public health and of damage to the environment. <\/p>\nIt says that picket lines blocking depots have been stopping vehicles from exiting, meaning that 17,000 tonnes of rubbish has been left uncollected. <\/p>\n
Declaring a major incident enables the council to deploy an extra 35 vehicles and crews to collect rubbish.<\/p>\n
2 April:\u00a0<\/strong>The bin strike is referenced during Prime Minister\u2019s Questions, with Sir Keir Starmer saying that the Government will provide any support necessary to the council. <\/p>\n3 April:\u00a0<\/strong>Unite general secretary Sharon Graham writes to Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner to accuse ministers of sitting on their hands.<\/p>\n5 April:<\/strong>\u00a0Rayner meets Birmingham council leaders.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toys, trolleys and fruit machines have been dumped in the city’s streets as the bin strike continues Birmingham…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[855,7100,728,70,7101,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-10329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-councils","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-strikes","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114318441591871072","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Rubbish](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SEI_246699696.jpg\")
Rubbish piles up on a street in Birmingham during the workers\u2019 strike (Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth\/AP Photo)<\/p>\n