A group of Birmingham Muslims, known as the ‘Bearded Broz’, have taken it upon themselves to clean the streets in response to the ongoing Birmingham bin strike.
More than a dozen men from the local community volunteered to clear the backlog of bin bags, clearing four truckloads of rubbish to Tyseley tip and pledging to do more this weekend.
Naveed Sadiq, spokesman for the Broz, said the team could no longer wait and decided something needed to be done.
“The rubbish has been piled up like pyramids on the road and we’re not happy with the response of our councillors. We could not leave it with the stench if this strike is going to go on. So, we decided to do something ourselves.
Naveed went on to say that the volunteers are looking to expand on their initial clean-up of six Small Heath streets and have had requests from across Birmingham. The group has appealed to the council and local community to loan them the vehicles to be able to continue their work.
“The response has been overwhelming, we are now getting requests from other streets and neighbourhoods.”
“We’re all volunteers, nobody’s getting paid, because we want to help our community. As Muslims we feel it’s very important to do that. You can be a Muslim, you can be a Brummie you can be British and you can be proud to be from where you are”, added another Bearded Bro.
“We’re here, we’re positive, we’re contributing. All these guys have taken time out, some have come straight from work.”
“If you’ve got vehicles, you’ve got a van get in touch with us and let’s clean up Birmingham.”
The council is currently working on a ward to ward basis in its attempt to clear the backlog. Unite Assistant General Secretary Howard Beckett was brought in last week to help negotiations which have been ongoing since June 30 and are currently deadlocked.
Pic by: Richard Swingler
