This is the second year that the bin strikes are still going on in Birmingham. Bins are either being collected every two weeks or sometimes even being ignored, therefore, being collected every month. For the second biggest city in England it’s surprising how there is a stalemate when it comes to the necessity of bins being collected. You would think it’s a basic human right, no? The council doesn’t seem to think so.

There is a stereotype of people who live in Birmingham and being ‘the city of rats’ doesn’t help that. I’ve talked to a few people about the bin strikes in Birmingham, it’s a disappointing that they said “I’m ashamed to live there”. What once was a massive community of acceptance and kindness is now a fight to dump your rubbish in rivers. Burning litter in back gardens is a normality, something that I usually think is an extreme was to dispose of waste is now something I completely understand, which I wish I didn’t.

No recycling is available in Birmingham. None at all. I feel a deep amount of guilt putting plastic in general bins, it’s not normal and we shouldn’t do it but it has nowhere else to go. I live in both Liverpool and Birmingham and I must say, it’s so different. In Liverpool, we have four different bins, recycling for glass and tins, recycling for paper and cardboard, a food waste bin for compost, and a general bin. Birmingham only has a general bin and that barely gets collected. I won’t patronise anyone reading this with the importance of recycling, but I will say that the only thing that will keep this planet alive is recycling, and a city of 1.1 million people can’t do it.

Given that bins can get collected for once a month a times, piles of bin bags will be scattered across the street. Birds will peck the bags and rubbish will be spilt everywhere. Obviously, this will attract rats. People have rat infestations in their homes and that isn’t a place anyone should ever live. I did a test in my back garden because my dog kept scratching this one spot, a tree that has been there since I ever lived there died out of nowhere, all my neighbours plants were dying and I felt that there was something going on. I put a wildlife camera in a hidden area over a few days. The rats built tunnels. Through everyone’s fence was a hole, I videoed the rats going through these holes and there was an unbelievable amount. We ended up stuffing rocks in the holes but they kept making more areas to get through. Rats cause so many diseases, they can infect you, infect your pets, cause bacteria in soil that your plants live in. They repopulate so quick that the only way to limit the amount of rats is by taking their source away, which in this case, is disposing of rubbish properly.

People have complained about the damp, rotting smell on their streets, hearing scratching in their walls from rats, and tripping over the amount of litter lying on the floor near their home. After doing my research on this issue, the Birmingham council is not doing anything to negotiate with the people protesting about the pay they receive as bin men. I want to be clear, this is not their fault, we’re in a cost of living crisis and we need all the help we can get. The council needs to come up with something before Birmingham is not somewhere people can live anymore. In desperate times, people use nature parks, rivers, streets, roads and even fire to get rid of this waste. Let’s do something about it and make Birmingham the welcoming community we always have been. If the petition gets 10,000 signatures, we will get a government response, if we manage to get 100,000 it will be sent to parliament to discuss. Let’s work together and make this happen!