Birmingham bin strikes leave woman stuck with recycling in home

A front room filled with bags of cardboard boxes, empty milk cartons and metal tins is the current reality for Frances Jones.

The 72-year-old from Sparkbrook has not had her recycling collected by Birmingham City Council since January due to the ongoing bin strikes.

Mrs Jones is living with her recycling because she cannot book an appointment to the tip without owning a car, something she has described as a “flawed system”.

The council said only residents with a booking, linked to the registration plate of their vehicle, were permitted to access recycling centres, with “no exceptions”.

All-out strike action led to a major incident being declared in the city in March but recycling and garden waste collections were suspended at the beginning of the year.

The council has said residents must keep hold of their recycling “until the next opportunity” if they cannot access a tip.

“At the moment [the recycling] is mainly in the front room, or in the back. It’s not nice. It’s just very frustrating and worrying not knowing how long it will go on,” she said.

Neighbours were being helpful and offered tip runs but she felt awkward about asking someone to take her rubbish away, she added.

Mrs Jones said she felt “resentful” as people without cars have been “paying for a service they cannot access”.

“You don’t want to have to live with all your recycling. If they change that rule, it would make life so much different to so many people,” she added.

Litter picker Pamela Pritchard, 68, from Perry Beeches in Great Barr is also unable to dispose of her extra waste and recycling without a car.

She said she was trying to be responsible but had no option other than to put her recycling into a normal bin.

“I’ve got a build up of stuff I can’t get rid of because it’s not allowed in the bin. It’s stuff I would take to the tip, but I can’t.”

She urged the council to have a facility where pedestrians could go to get rid of their recycling and other waste.

“Just remember that not everybody drives, the world does not revolve around car drivers,” she added.

Judith Whalley uses a mobility scooter and lives in Hockley, an area where residents do not have wheelie bins due to the layout of the houses.

She said that in previous weeks bags had been piled waist high – in some places completely blocking the pavement and making journeys more difficult. The bags in her street have since been removed.

Elsewhere in the city, Brenda Diskin, 85, from Selly Oak described the council’s tip slot rules as “utterly stupid”.

She said she has to walk in the road because of the mess and smell coming from bin bags on the pavement which was “pretty horrendous”.

“At the peak of the strikes the house opposite me, which at the moment has bins that still haven’t been emptied, they must have had 20 sacks piled up outside the one house.”

The BBC requested a comment from Birmingham City Council on the specific Household Recycling Centre slot booking rules, but it did not respond.