{"id":623729,"date":"2025-12-10T07:15:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T07:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/623729\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T07:15:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T07:15:34","slug":"madness-birmingham-council-to-push-ahead-with-fortnightly-bin-collection-plan-regardless-of-strike-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/623729\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Madness’: Birmingham Council to push ahead with fortnightly bin collection plan ‘regardless of strike situation’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Labour-run council<\/a>, which has been grappling with a financial crisis, says it needs to transform its waste<\/a> service to improve reliability, hit recycling targets and aid its financial recovery.<\/p>\n

The changes, which will see collections of household rubbish move from weekly to fortnightly, were initially meant to be rolled out earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Weekly food waste collections and a second recycling bin, specifically for recycling paper and cardboard, were also set to be introduced in phases across Birmingham<\/a> from April onwards.<\/p>\n

But the waste transformation was pushed back to the impact of the ongoing bins strike, which left small mountains of bin bags piling up in city streets during its height.<\/p>\n

\"BinsBins filled with rubbish in Selly Oak, Birmingham on September 10. Photo: Alexander Brock<\/p>\n

As the industrial action drags on into the festive period, the council said the changes are now set to start rolling out in June 2026 \u201cregardless of the strike situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"PiledPiled-up bin bags in Kitchener Road, Selly Park on May 23. Photo: Alexander Brock<\/p>\n

Cabinet members at the council agreed to go ahead with the new transformation plans at a meeting on Tuesday (December 9) \u2013 but opposition councillors were sceptical about the upcoming changes amid the current turbulence.<\/p>\n

\u201cResidents will rightly ask how on earth Labour can justify pushing ahead with a completely new waste system when they can\u2019t even get the current one working,\u201d Conservative councillor Robert Alden said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe council has been unable to collect recycling for a year and yet Labour would have you believe they can successfully introduce food waste recycling during a strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Alden, leader of the opposition, also urged the council during the meeting to \u201clook again\u201d at its plans to switch to fortnightly collections of household rubbish.<\/p>\n

\"BirminghamBirmingham Conservative councillor Robert Alden at the full council meeting on Tuesday, December 2. Photo: Alexander Brock<\/p>\n

Conservative councillor Ewan Mackey added that it \u201cseems like madness to introduce a new service\u201d amid the current disruption from the strike.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t long ago that we heard the agency workers themselves were going on strike,\u201d he said. \u201cReputational damage is bad enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re ready to go\u2019<\/p>\n

However Councillor Majid Mahmood, the cabinet member for environment, said last week that he was confident that the rollout would take place next year and dramatically improve the service.<\/p>\n

He said changes had been introduced in recent months to support the transformation, including more than 1,100 new routes, a new council-owned fleet and training for staff and managers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have already made some changes, with our new council-owned fleet fully operational,\u201d the Labour councillor said. \u201c[This means] there is less reliance on hired vehicles, improved reliability and better consistency in collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur crews have the tools they need to deliver a more reliable, efficient service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re ready to go on this now,\u201d he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. \u201cWe\u2019ve done all the background, done all the mobilisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve very confident that we\u2019ll get the rollout in June.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MajidMajid Mahmood, Birmingham’s cabinet member for environment<\/p>\n

The council has also said there will be \u201cextensive communication and engagement\u201d with residents and a trial scheme for the food waste collections from March next year.<\/p>\n

On the move to a fortnightly collection of household rubbish, Councillor Mahmood said previously: \u201cI know some residents are concerned [\u2026] but this will not be introduced until we have the food waste collections, meaning people will have less general waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

He confirmed last week that \u201call [the changes] will be introduced at the same time\u201d next summer.<\/p>\n

Councillor Rob Pocock, the cabinet member overseeing transformation, told the meeting that the proposals were the \u201cbiggest transformation in our household waste collection service for at least 25 years\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c[They] will finally bring to an end this city\u2019s woefully underperforming recycling service,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a position that has been unacceptable for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dispute between the council and Unite the union was initially sparked by the loss of the waste recycling and collection officer role.<\/p>\n

Striking workers have raised concerns about pay while the Labour-run council\u2019s leadership has repeatedly insisted that a \u201cfair and reasonable\u201d offer had been made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Labour-run council, which has been grappling with a financial crisis, says it needs to transform its waste…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,728,4884,8823,379,12,285,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-623729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-ldrs","14":"tag-local-hubs","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115694045915325562","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623729","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=623729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}