The Birmingham City Council has declared a major incident because an estimated 17,000 tonnes of waste in the city is inexplicable due to an ongoing strike of the bowl.
The statement means that the council will initially increase the availability of street cleansing and removal of aircraft, with an additional 35 vehicles and crews in the city.
It will also enable the council to investigate what further support is available from neighboring authorities and the government and work with partners to better manage health and fire risks that cause garbage build-up.
Members of the Unite Union in Birmingham hold an overall strike in a prolonged dispute, following the role of waste collection and recycling officer, which led to the stacking in the streets and residents who complained about rats.
The council says the daily blocking of its depots through pikets has meant that workers cannot take out their vehicles to collect waste.
A focus of the big incident will be to make sure Bin trucks can safely enter and leave the waste depots of the council.
“It is deplorable that we should take this step, but we cannot tolerate a situation that damages the communities across Birmingham,” said council leader John Cotton.
‘I respect the right to strike and protest, but actions on the pikline must be legal, and the behavior of some now means that we have a significant impact on residents and the city’s environment.
“Unless we declare a major incident and deploy the contingency plan of the waste service, we would not be able to clear the backlog of waste on the street or improve the frequency of collections.”
About 200 waste collection vehicles are usually deployed in eight hours of daily shifts, with their contingency plan during the strike that makes 90 possible, but the local authority says the blocking of depots by Picket Lines has delayed them to get it on the street.
Normally, council’s waste teams would make more than half a million collections a week, with its strike occurrence that allows 360,000, but the ‘blockade’ of depots means that crew ‘drives far below this.
In a statement, the council said that the daily accumulation of unfounded waste in the city increased from 483 tonnes per day in the week of March 10, and 655 tonnes per day in the week of March 17, to nearly 900 tonnes per day in the week of March 24.
So far, discussions between Unite and Council officials have not been successful. Their last meeting was held on Thursday.
Majid Mahmood, cabinet member for environment and transport at the City Council, said last week that the government is willing to work all the time to resolve the dispute.
Mr Cotton added: ‘I would like to thank residents for their continued patience under difficult circumstances and the community groups who worked hard in their communities to help with the cleaning.
“I would reiterate that we made a fair and reasonable offer to our workers, which means no one has to lose money, and I will call on Unite to reconsider their position.”
