50,000 residents affected by bin change blunder

Birmingham Council has vowed that lessons will be learned after 50,000 residents were affected by a blunder linked to bin collection changes.

The council’s leadership – a coalition of Liberal Democrats, Greens and various independents – have been pushing ahead with plans to transform the waste service.

But the council’s new bins boss had to apologise earlier this year amid accusations that a pilot in the north of the city has been “rushed out”.

The package of changes included within this trial included weekly collections of household rubbish going fortnightly, a second recycling bin and a food waste collection.

But the pilot triggered backlash in its opening weeks, with Tory Councillor Richard Parkin describing the rollout as “shambolic”.

He raised a number of issues during a meeting in the summer, including letters with ‘incorrect’ dates being sent out, and added: “For me, this project was rushed out.”

The council says a decision regarding the future of the city’s waste service has not yet been made but acknowledged that lessons need to be learned from the pilot regardless of what happens.

“The communications provided to residents was somewhat confusing,” it said in a new report. “In some cases households may have received up to four different letters advising them of alternative collection dates.

“Furthermore, up to 50,000 residents received the wrong calendar.

“Whilst this was rectified quickly, it is accepted that the incident shouldn’t have arisen.”

It added that there needed to be a minimum of six weeks for the pre-service transformation communications campaign.

“Providing a six-week lead time will ensure that the communications programme can be effectively managed and will help mitigate against a reoccurrence of such instances,” the council report said.

Cllr Harris Khaliq, the cabinet member overseeing the bin changes, recognised earlier this year that there had been “issues” during the pilot and apologised to “any residents impacted”.

He also said at the time that the trial was helping identify issues early so they can be addressed before any wider rollout.

At a meeting, Cllr Khaliq said the changes were agreed and started to be planned for from the cabinet approval in December 2025.

“Containers were acquired, resources were lined up, vehicles were approved and everything was planned out for us to go ahead with the transformation rollout,” he said.

“I understand there were challenges in your [Cllr Richard Parkin] ward and I did apologise at full council – and I will apologise again because residents who are expecting stable transformation services should be getting stable transformation services.

“You are 100 per cent correct – this is our opportunity to give residents what they want because they haven’t had it for a very long time.”

Cllr Khaliq continued: “What I would say is the sheer scale of what we are doing is bigger than local authorities.

“North Birmingham alone is bigger than many local authorities.”

Robert Edmondson, director of waste and street scene at the council, added: “The size and magnitude of this change is quite significant.

“But there’s been significant planning which is sat behind it.”

He continued: “The complexity is huge and we’ve been absolutely open and honest – there were some errors, there were some mistakes […] which has resulted in residents receiving the wrong calendar.”

‘We want residents to have the best waste service’

A second pilot, which kept the weekly refuse collections, was also delivered to thousands of households across the Hodge Hill and Bromford, Moseley, Kings Norton South and Stirchley wards.

After exploring both options, the recently-published council report said that the data showed that the first pilot “performed more favourably” than the other.

But decisions regarding the future of the waste service still need to go through the council’s cabinet members.

“We want residents to have the best waste service and the new improved service will mean more waste capacity,” Cllr Khaliq previously said.

On the pilot in the north of the city, he said:  “People getting the new service will be getting a weekly food waste collection, following the successful pilot, and a second recycling bin.

“This means that all that will be left for the fortnightly general waste collection will be whatever can’t be recycled – so the waste that causes the most concern, such as smelly food leftovers, will be collected weekly.

“All this will be supported with parallel activity taking place including extra clean-up measures and new investment into enforcement so we can all do our bit to keep the city clean.”

By Alexander Brock | Local Democracy Reporting Service