Chloe HughesWest Midlands
BBCThe amount of rubbish being sent to landfill by Birmingham City Council has doubled since bin strikes began, figures have revealed.
Thursday marks six months since Unite union members began all-out strikes.
About 2.84% of rubbish was sent to landfill from 1 January to 30 June 2024, but during the same time this year that has risen to 5.8%. Over the same period, recycling rates fell from an already poor 22.17% to 13.24%.
In a statement, the city council said due to the industrial action, the kerbside recycling collection service had been suspended, but it had extended opening hours at household recycling centres and mobile waste centres, in order to help residents recycle as much as possible.
In January, the local authority announced plans to overhaul its waste services in a bid to address the poor performance, including switching to alternate fortnightly collections for recycling and household waste.
There was also a pledge to reduce the amount of recycling being contaminated by other rubbish, extra recycling containers, and the introduction of a food waste collection.
However those plans were immediately paused as bin crews started industrial action.
Government targets mean councils across England need to aim for 65% of waste being recycled by 2035.
What is more, currently when waste is sent to landfill, councils are required to pay tax on it – £126 per tonne for household waste.
Birmingham City Council sent 13,781 tonnes to landfill between the start of January and the end of June this year, meaning the cash-strapped council has to pay out £1.7m in tax.
In recent months, general waste has been largely collected, but residents have not had recycling collections since January.
Some say they have resorted to putting it in with their general waste, while others have said they take it in to work or ask family members in neighbouring authorities to dispose of it.
Between 1 January and 30 June 2024, 22.17% of overall waste was recycled in Birmingham, amounting to 43,864 tonnes.
In that same period this year, 13.24% was recycled – 24,071 tonnes.
“The city has stopped recycling because of this dispute,” said councillor Julian Pritchard, “which is absolutely terrible”.
He is a councillor in Druids Heath and leader of the Green Party group on the city council.
“Some people, if they’re able, are trying to do the right thing, trying to take it to the tip or trying to store it, but for a lot of people both of those options won’t be possible,” he said.
“It’s not just bad for the environment, the council will be losing money over this.
“That’s another financial impact on top of everything else.”
More waste was being burnt in an incinerator, he said, “which is already out of date, inefficient and dirty”.
Naomi Clooney, 50, who lives in Aston, said she had been taking her recycling to Wales when visiting family.
She believed the situation was “unacceptable” when residents had faced consecutive council tax rises – a 7.5% rise in April, on top of almost 9% the year before.
“It [has] marred the perspective of the city,” she said. “I had family over from Ireland and it was really quite embarrassing.”
Meanwhile, Mollie Queen, 74, from Edgbaston, said it was harder for older people to recycle. She has just had a hip replacement.
“It’s upsetting because I have very many newspapers, and it’s virtually impossible to get rid of them,” she said.
“I have sympathy for people who need to earn a living, but it has been very upsetting.”
Steve, from Castle Vale, said cardboard was one thing he had 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.”
Ken, also from Castle Vale, said: “I’ve been recycling since I was 15 years old and I’m 75 now, and it really goes against the grain.
“Birmingham, now they have stopped recycling, they’ve taken us back to the 1970s when everything used to go in the same bin.”
Over in Kings Norton, Lorraine Boyce is using her hallway to store a mound of recycling.
‘Piles of rubbish are set on fire’
Josh Taylor, from Evolution Vaping in Kingstanding, claimed residents were widely burning their recycling waste to get rid of it.
“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.”
The council’s cabinet member for environment, Majid Mahmood, was quizzed earlier this week about more recycling figures, which showed just 15.45% of rubbish in the city was being recycled during the first quarter of 2025-26 (April to end of June).
He told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the numbers “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 added.
“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.”
The council added that it remained “committed to our carbon reduction ambitions”, but that the city would achieve this “through a range of activities beyond recycling such as retrofitting projects, support for businesses to become more energy efficient and improving the electric vehicle charging network”.
