Are Muslim immigrants the reason why there are piles of garbage in the neighborhoods of Birmingham, England? No, that's not true: Refuse workers in Birmingham, England, are "taking all out indefinite strike action" starting on March 11, 2025. They began striking in January over job cuts, and for better pay. The garbage piles up because it is not being hauled away and the problem is not specific to any specific demographic of Birmingham's population.
The claim appeared in a post on X (archived here) published on March 10, 2025, which included a 0:22 second long video showing piles of garbage bags and overflowing bins. It was captioned:
This is Birmingham, England, a city with 35% Muslims. If you import third world you become third world.
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Mar 11 15:16:14 2025 UTC)
A March 9, 2025 report from the BBC (archived here) is titled with a quote from a union representative, "'Bin workers have little choice over strike'". Since January there have been several one-day walkouts, but March 11, 2025, marked the day that the all-out strike action was due to begin. A March 10, 2025, press release from Unite (archived here), Britain and Ireland's largest union, warned that the "bin chaos could stretch into summer", and describes the grievances of the refuse workers:
Nearly 400 workers will tomorrow (Tuesday 11 March) begin an indefinite strike over the scrapping of the waste collection and recycling officer role (WRCO), which has impacted 150 workers with pay cuts of up to £8,000.
Removing the role affects the rest of the low paid workforce by leaving them without a fair path for pay progression. There is also increasing concern amongst the entire workforce that the council is preparing to downgrade the pay of other non-management roles in the service.
The Birmingham City Council has a FAQ page (archived here) on their website which explains what residents should do during the waste collection industrial action.
The video was originally posted on TikTok (archived here) by @aamirfarouq on March 10, 2025 with the caption:
Rubbish Crisis in Birmingham During Ramadan 2025 🚨 Mayday
#BirminghamNews #RubbishCrisis #CleanUpBirmingham #UKStreetLife #BinTheMess #alumrock #ramadan2025
The audio track features the voice of a man saying:
Walking through Alum Rock and just look at this -- rubbish everywhere! Birmingham City Council, where are you guys? Where are ya? Slight mess. Maybe it will clean itself up. Someday, one day. Come on Birmingham City Council.
Lead Stories used Google Street View (pictured below) to identify the location on Gowan Road (archived here) in the neighborhood of Alum Rock in Birmingham, England. The street view image is dated July 2023. Although there were some vacant buildings, construction, and scraps of litter in 2023 -- the neighborhood was not piled high with garbage bags and overflowing trash bins as seen in the video from 2025.
(Source: instantstreetview.com screenshot taken on Tue Mar 11 16:55:23 2025 UTC)
Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims about the United Kingdom can be found here.
