Rats, rotting waste as rubbish row blights UK’s city

On a normal day in an ordinary English street there would be nothing special about the arrival of a bin lorry.

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But in Birmingham, the UK’s second city, a rare garbage truck visit brings crowds of people rushing into the road, their arms full of rubbish. Residents are desperately trying to get rid of an estimated 17,000 tonnes of trash that has piled up since refuse workers ramped up a strike last month.

Now, as bin bags swelter in the spring sun and rats, foxes, and cats claw through mountains of litter, many people in Birmingham feel the city has reached breaking point. Four weeks in, the city council has declared a “major incident,” the prime minister has reacted to sound the government’s response in parliament, and residents say their problems are worsening by the day.

There was a bin fire on the end of our street the other night,” said Abed Mihai, 23, who lives in the Saltey area of the city where mounds of ripening rubbish have attracted worms, maggots and vermin. “It’s scary — I’m worried for my kids,” he said, adding the pest-infested piles were affecting his three-year-old son’s health. “Every time he goes out the back he vomits from the smell,” Mihai said.