Overflowing bins, foul odors, and mounting frustration—these have become the new normal for residents in some of England’s largest cities this summer. Both Birmingham and London’s Ealing borough have found themselves in the headlines, not for their vibrant culture or bustling city centers, but for the rubbish piling up on their streets. Behind the scenes, a tangled web of staff shortages, industrial action, and financial woes has left many locals feeling, quite literally, left out in the cold (or, perhaps more accurately, left out in the rubbish).
In Birmingham, the city’s long-standing waste collection woes reached a boiling point in 2025. According to reporting from Birmingham Live and corroborated by The Telegraph, the problems didn’t begin with the citywide bins strike that erupted in March. Missed collections were already a recurring complaint throughout 2024, with neighborhoods like Edgbaston, Bartley Green, Selly Park, Northfield, Harborne, and Sutton Coldfield all reporting unreliable service. The city council’s own performance report for the third quarter of 2024-25 revealed a stark figure: 356 reported missed bin collections per 100,000 scheduled—well above the target of 90, and a dramatic 31% increase from the previous quarter. For context, the previous year’s average was just 166.
The underlying causes were many. The council, led by Labour, pointed to a combination of factors: aging waste vehicles, workforce shortages, operational difficulties, and, crucially, tensions over changes to the waste collection service. One major flashpoint was the removal of the Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) role, a move that sparked discontent among staff and ultimately led to a full-blown strike in March 2025. The council’s own report noted that, while it was difficult to measure the direct impact, the implementation phase of removing the WRCO role coincided with a marked decline in performance. As one Conservative councillor, Ewan Mackey, put it, “I think it’s important we look at this set of figures and don’t turn around and say ‘we’ve had a bin strike this year and that’s why the figures are so bad’. The service has some questions to look at regardless of the strike.”
For residents, the consequences have been more than just unsightly. One woman, frustrated by repeated missed collections at her block of flats, felt compelled to hire a skip at her own expense. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman sided with her, concluding that Birmingham City Council had caused “difficulties and financial expense.” The council agreed to pay her £300 for the frustration and £168 for the skip—an official apology that did little to stem the tide of complaints citywide. The ombudsman’s report also highlighted operational changes that contributed to the chaos; notably, collection times were shifted from 6am to 8am, leading to more missed collections due to increased traffic, as confirmed by both the council and collection crews.
Efforts to modernize the service have been hamstrung by the ongoing strike. Plans to introduce fortnightly household rubbish collections and new recycling bins, originally set for April 2025, have been delayed indefinitely. Weekly food waste collections and a second recycling bin for paper and cardboard were also part of the city’s transformation agenda. But as of August 18, 2025, Councillor Majid Mahmood, the cabinet member for environment, admitted he could not give a timeline for when these changes—or even the return of regular recycling collections—would take place. “We apologise to Mrs X for any distress caused,” he said, referencing the compensation case. “We have agreed to pay appropriate compensation along with other actions set out by the ombudsman.”
Meanwhile, the city has been forced to pay £8 million to maintain a skeleton rubbish service using agency staff, all while grappling with the fallout from a massive equal pay dispute. The roots of this financial burden stretch back to a 2012 case, when the council lost a landmark lawsuit after awarding bonuses to refuse collectors and street cleaners but not to cleaners and caterers—a decision that has cost Birmingham almost £1.1 billion and counting. The current strike, which began in January 2025, centers on pay cuts of up to £8,000 affecting around 400 workers, many of whom are former WRCOs or bin lorry drivers. Despite half a year of negotiations between the Unite union and the council, there’s little sign of resolution.
The impact on daily life has been severe. Residents have reported not only unsightly and smelly piles of rubbish, but also infestations of giant rats, which locals have nicknamed ‘Squeaky Blinders’. One local councillor, Izzy Knowles, told MailOnline that residents living in flats felt “forgotten about” amid the ongoing disruption. Images of stray cats rummaging through piles of trash have become emblematic of Birmingham’s struggle to keep its streets clean.
London’s Ealing borough, though facing a different set of challenges, has not escaped similar headlines. In August 2025, Ealing Council announced that bin collections were being delayed due to staff shortages—this time, because binmen were on summer holidays and some were on sick leave. The council, also Labour-led, said it expected the disruption to last until September, when staff would return from holiday. In the meantime, services were being deployed later than usual, and any bins not collected on schedule would be prioritized the next day. “We are sorry about the delays that are occurring to bin collections due to driver shortage and the impact it is having on residents,” a council spokesman told The Chiswick Calendar. “This is because a number of staff are currently off sick and, in addition, as it is the summer holiday period many staff are on leave, which we anticipate lasting until September when the holidays have finished.”
To address the crisis, Ealing Council is actively recruiting more staff and considering higher pay or incentives to attract HGV drivers, who are in high demand across several industries, including supermarket deliveries. The council is also reviewing salaries and other benefits in hopes of retaining its workforce. Yet, for many residents, the disruption is more than just an inconvenience—it’s a breach of trust. Susan Hall, the Conservative leader in the London Assembly, didn’t mince words: “When you’re paid to do a job, damn well do it and the people in charge of them, they need to be talked to as well. When you’re running a company or a business, you have to make sure you’ve got a certain amount of staff in order to deliver the service you’re providing. Just because these people work for a council, they assume they can do what they like. It’s not good enough.”
Adding insult to injury, Ealing residents have seen their council tax bills rise sharply—by £93 per month for the average band D home, with band H properties now paying more than £4,000 annually. The government has weighed in too, with officials warning that regular waste collections are a vital public service and must continue, regardless of staff holidays or industrial action.
With both Birmingham and Ealing struggling to deliver on basic services, the summer of 2025 has exposed deep-rooted challenges in the UK’s local government waste collection systems. Whether due to labor disputes, financial mismanagement, or simple staff shortages, the piles of rubbish serve as a stark reminder: when the bins stop being emptied, it’s not just trash that accumulates, but public anger and disillusionment as well.
