Private companies were already part of Birmingham’s waste system during the strike, from waste treatment to agency staff. What was not simple was replacing the council’s collection rounds across the whole city: that needed crews, vehicles, route data and a lawful labour arrangement during an industrial dispute, which is a different task from one household booking a clearance van.

Private firms already had a role

Veolia says it has held a 10-year integrated waste treatment contract with Birmingham City Council since 2024, dealing with the city’s waste, recycling and energy recovery, and it runs the household recycling centres. Treatment capacity, though, does not provide crews to empty every household bin.

The council also said, in its statement of 11 March 2026, that it was using the same level of agency staff as before the strike and was operating within the law on agency labour. That is the council’s account; the same statement records Unite allegations about the agency workforce, which the council rejects.

A one-off private household booking is a separate arrangement again. It can clear a particular backlog without making that business responsible for anyone else’s round.

Rules on replacing striking workers

The Local Government Association explains that, under regulation 7 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, an employment business cannot supply a temporary worker to replace someone taking part in lawful industrial action, or to do the work of someone moved to cover those duties. A 2022 repeal of that rule was quashed by the High Court with effect from 10 August 2023.

This is not a blanket ban on every independently run service contract. The actual working arrangement matters, and calling a labour-supply deal a “collection contract” does not remove the restriction. Any council or business considering this needs legal advice on the specific arrangement.

A citywide replacement has many dependencies

A replacement service needs enough vehicles and trained crews, collection round data, maintenance, unloading capacity and supervision. The council also described repeated blockades at its depots and sought injunctions; those are the council’s statements, not a neutral finding about every incident.

A small private clearance avoids some of these problems by using its own vehicle and a confirmed commercial disposal site. Scaling that up to every household in a large city is a different job.

The better question

Ask which gap a private operator could reliably fill: urgent household clearances, defined neighbourhood routes, or a properly procured contingency contract. Each has a different customer, legal basis and cost. A backlog alone does not show that a provider could replace the council service lawfully or economically.

For residents, the council’s bulky-waste page still said on 30 September 2026 that new requests were paused because of the strike action, so check its current pages before planning around council services.

The bottom line

Private companies did take part in Birmingham’s waste system during the dispute, but a wholesale private takeover of the rounds faced practical, contractual and legal limits. Individual households could still book a registered private collector for their own waste.

Sources

This guide draws on the following sources, checked on 30 September 2026:

• Veolia Birmingham, “Who we are”
• Local Government Association, “Managing industrial action (employment law topics and guides)”
• Birmingham City Council, “Industrial action in the waste service: one year on from start of all-out strike (11 March 2026)”
• Birmingham City Council, “Bulky waste collection (service update)”

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Compare Waste Removal is an independent guide. We may earn a fee from some links; this never affects what we write. This is general information, not legal advice.