The solid smell of rotting garbage fills the air. Burned bags of garbage high and some spill their festival content. And, with Vermin, which is bothering the city parts, at least one resident claimed that he was bitten by the rat.

With his heritage as a production power plant and a proud civic history, Birmingham likes to call himself another city of Britain.

This is exactly the capital of the garbage of the nation.

The conflict between striking workers and city officials has left about 17,000 tonnes of garbage accumulated on city streets that attract rats, foxes, cockroaches and maggots. On Monday, the municipality of Birmingham declared a “great incident”, which allows him to access more resources from the Government and other nearby regions.

Some garbage collections are still going on, and the city has been able to retain many areas, including the center, clean of garbage. But in several housing districts and parks, it was very striking on Wednesday.

In the small Heath, the neighborhood two miles from the city center, the black plastic bags were piling up at the end of some streets, and people from other areas added to the mess by throwing their unmistakable garbage.

“I lived in England for 36 years. I have never seen such a situation before,” said Javad Javada, 51, a delivery driver who originated from Iran, as he passed the crowded plastic trash cans coated by Malmesbury Road.

“Of course, at night, if you come at 10 o’clock, you see a lot of rats,” he said. “So much so that cats don’t rush them.”

Birmingham’s crowd of garbage sparked political death in the British parliament, where Jim McMahon, a minister from the ruling Labor Party, warned of the risks of public health and one Birmingham MP, Pretet Kaur Gill, said the ingredient wrote that “they were bitten by the rat.”

The opposition MP, Julian Lewis, compared the situation with the infamous strike of the 1978 garbage collection during industrial unrest under the James Callaghan Government. The period became known as the “winter of dissatisfaction”, and next year the Labor lost the general elections, launching Margaret Thatcher to power.

This dispute, however, is limited to Birmingham, where more than 350 workers in January began limited walks that escalated in an indefinite strike last month.

“We cannot tolerate the situation that causes damage and trouble to communities,” said the leader of the Birmingham City Council, John Cotton, UA statement.

Union members claim that the restructuring plan that has been pushed by the municipality would leave about 150 workers Up to £ 8,000 (about $ 10,400) a year poorer. The Council disputes this, saying that “the number of staff that could lose the maximum amount (just over £ 6,000) 17 people).”

While the two sides remained found, the results were visible on the Malmesbury road, where black plastic bags were crowds on both ends of the street and in a halfway down. Some desperate residents started taking garbage on the landfill.

While he loaded about 20 bags in his car, Shakeel Ahmed explained that the garbage had accumulated three weeks outside his house and in the garden.

Driving to waste, Mr. Ahmed, 69, a retired train manager, kept the windows open and apologized for the scent in his car, adding that he would clean it professionally after dumping garbage. “If I am angry, it won’t solve the problem,” he said, philosophically.

At the rejection and recycling center in Tyseley, a few miles southeast of the city center, others had a similar story of stench, vermin and damaged in the reputation of the city.

“We can’t open the window because of the scent, it’s garbage everywhere – it’s funny,” said Rubina Yaqoob, 43, describing the situation in Stechford, in the eastern Birmingham. The vehicle was new to her and she lined the trunk of the leaf before loading it with 10 sacks of garbage. “Look at my car!” She said, pointing to the mess that made the garbage.

Some do not have this opportunity, including Roberta Shaw, 60, a school cleaner, who found himself living next to a bunch of waste bags on Henshaw Road. “What the Council told us is that we can take it to Tyseley,” he said. “But if you don’t have a car, how should you take it?”

The crisis forced some of the city’s residents to be inventive. Sitting in the sun in Morris Park, waiting to collect her three children from school, Tafader told the Tafader that her husband called her relatives to find space in her buckets for some of the family garbage. His mother passed.

Then, when one morning a release truck arrived at about 7:30 in the morning, the inhabitants came out of their homes to put their bags from the street into a truck, said Mrs. Tafader, 34, a translator.

In the second warehouse in Tyseley, the attackers gathered at the door in front of the departure truck, delaying their trips walking in front of them with a snap pace several hundred meters.

Lee Haven, a member of the United Union, has disputed the city’s claim that no worker “has to lose money”, claiming that planned changes could cost about £ 600 a month at a time when household accounts are growing rapidly.

The origin of the dispute is in 2023 when the City Council in Birmingham declared basically bankruptcypartly as a result of equal cases of payments launched by workers and began to implement far -reaching cuts for services.

As part of the restructuring plan, the municipality now wants to abolish one position on waste teams, known as a recycling and collection officer, which he says does not exist in other municipalities. Workers in this role can take over voluntary redundance or move to another place.

He says the simplification of the salary structure is crucial and retaining the role would risk “creating a huge future of equal responsibility for payment,” but refused to explain exactly why.

“There is a feeling that we have become a sacrificial goat,” said Mr. Haven, watching about 10 police officers. “I think the normal working class family in this country will realize that no one affords that loss of £ 600.”

Even while they contain the state of their streets, some city residents sympathize with waste collectors.

“I do not blame them because I don’t think their salaries should be reduced,” said Zenat Hussain (53, an administrator of the Saltley Health Service. “What they do is an important job.”