Residents of Selly Oak, a student-heavy area in south Birmingham, say some streets have gone weeks or months without a bin lorry, leaving bags piled on pavements and attracting flies and rats. Local accounts describe overflowing bins, food waste and litter, while the city council says scheduled residual waste collections on two named roads have continued. The gap between those two pictures is the core of the story.
What residents are describing
Julie Homer, 63, a retired police officer who lives in Halesowen, visits Selly Oak every week to help her 20-year-old niece, a film student at the University of Birmingham. She said the bins at the house were already overflowing when her niece and two housemates moved in during July, and that she now takes a rubbish bag from the property roughly every 10 days. She said the bin at the house had not been emptied since 14 July, and that other students were leaving their own bags on the street. "It is rancid. You can smell the bins," she said.
Other students described a similar pattern. Several said they now leave rubbish outside their houses because bins are full, and one said she had placed her recycling in neighbours' bins. Two students reported flies and said they had seen rats near piles of waste.
Why the problem is hard to fix
Homer's account points to a specific mechanism. The area has a high share of students, many without cars, who cannot easily take bags to a household recycling centre. When one bin is full, additional bags spill onto the street, and once a bin is overfilled, the next household's bag often gets added to it. Homer also said her niece has only a general black bin and no recycling bin, and that the council confirmed it would not collect recycling bins in that part of the area. She argued that this pushes more material into general waste.
The council has attributed some disruption to industrial action by Unite the Union. It told residents to put out their grey-lid general waste bins on normal collection days, and said recycling collections in the area were suspended during the action, so blue-lid bins should not be set out. It also said crews would not collect contaminated refuse or mismanaged recycling.
What the council says
A Birmingham City Council spokesperson, responding to Birmingham Now, said records and vehicle data showed scheduled residual waste collections on Hubert Road and Tiverton Road had continued. The council reported 9,425 completed collections on Hubert Road and 9,280 on Tiverton Road since 1 April 2026, and said three missed collections had been reported on Hubert Road and five on Tiverton Road, with three of those judged unjustified. It said seven missed collections were resolved within its 48-hour service level agreement. The council also said it is working with the community to find a site for a mobile household waste recycling centre, which it described as a priority.
Limits of the evidence and practical steps
The published accounts are individual experiences, and the council's figures cover only two roads, so it is not clear how widespread missed collections are across Selly Oak. Residents' reports and council records may both be accurate about different streets or periods. For households, the verified guidance is to report any missed collection so it can be investigated, and to use a household recycling centre where possible while recycling collections are suspended. Stacking bags beside full bins or leaving them on pavements is likely to worsen the problem, as residents themselves have noted.