The ongoing bin strike in Birmingham, active since the beginning of March, has seen refuse pile up on the streets of the city.
The city council and union Unite are in dispute over pay and proposed job cuts, with rubbish going uncollected since March 11.
Birmingham City Council has declared a major incident and asked for help from neighbouring authorities - but 50 years ago a similar incident in Glasgow saw things go even further.
An unofficial strike by around 350 dustcart drivers - i.e not one officially called by their union - saw rubbish pile up in tenement closes, the city streets and beyond.
Ultimately the army was deployed to clear the waste in a bitter dispute which dragged on for 13 weeks.
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The walkout began on January 12, 1975 as the city's bin lorry drivers accused Glasgow Corporation - as Glasgow City Council was then called - of backtracking on a promise to negotiate locally on a special HGV allowance if one was not found locally.
A previous month-long strike had been halted eight weeks earlier, but the drivers walked out in an effort to have their minimum wage brought in line with those in the private sector, an increase of around £3.50 per week.
Organisers claimed they had agreed their previous settlement on the understanding that talks would be reopened if a national agreement, which was under negotiation at the time, did not give a special allowance for heavy goods drivers.
Shop stewards convenor Archie Hood warned: "We are prepared to go all the way this time."
The 350 drivers withdrew their labour on January 13, with refuse collectors who were not involved in the strike handing out DIY bin bags to houses, shops and offices.
By March 5 there were 50,000 tonnes of litter on the streets of the city, the pile growing by 1000 tonnes per day, and the Daily Record was warning the city could face a wave of dysentery.
The council's Labour group leader Dick Dynes said: "If the men are adamant on staying out then we may have to talk in terms of troops.
"I would hope this might prove unnecessary."
Talks were held to try and avoid that possibility, with the issue further complicated by an electrician's strike which had shut the incinerators.
Talks failed and Minister of State at the Scotland Office Bruce Millan was called in to try and find a solution.
Mr Dynes said: "The corporation was duty bound at some stage to inform the Scotland Office that a health hazard exists.
"I have refrained all along from talking about bringing in the troops, I didn't want to worsen the problem.
"We are only doing what we have to."
The Scottish National Party urged unhappy residents to leave their bin bags on the steps of the city chambers.
The government accepted Glasgow was facing a serious situation but said that it had not yet reached a level which required government intervention.
Mr Hood said: "When I suggested we go back, the men told me bluntly they would stay out until they got the money."
The following day Alex Kitson, the national executive officer for the Transport and General Workers Union met shot stewards to inform them that the strike would not be made official.
He said: "They have been told no official backing will be given or can be given, and that they should return to work."
Drivers in Liverpool who walked out over the same issue were given an interim £2.63 per week to end their own eight-week strike but Glasgow's councillors dug their heels in.
By the middle of March army vehicles were rolling over the border at Berwick, at the STUC desperately tried to come to a solution.
At the 11th hour the union body attempted mediation between corporation and workers, warning the deployment of troops would "bedevil industrial relations and political relations in the city for a generation".
At dawn on March 19, 1975 the army moved in.
Talks between the Glasgow Corporation and the STUC the previous day had broken down, despite eight hours of talks, with council bosses saying it would be impossible to accept paying an extra £2.50 a week to drivers.
Minor scuffles were reported between striking drivers and bin men on picket lines at the Dawsholm incinerator, with Mr Hood warning that the deployment of the Royal Highland Fusiliers was attracting "international socialist and left-wingers" who "could cause trouble".
If the plan was to break the resolve of the drivers it didn't work.
Drivers in Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow walked out in solidarity, while the Corporation approved bonuses for refuse collectors assisting in the clean-up.
"There are now widespread effects in the Midlands and we would hope that in Scotland others would come out to support us."
Dundee's drivers soon joined too, as did some areas of Lanarkshire, but Liverpool's council agreeing to settle did not open the floodgates.
Glasgow Corporation insisted there would be no local negotiations, and talks with the National Joint Council in London broke down on April 4.
With the advent of a new tax year meaning an end to £3-4 per week rebates, no pay and no union backing the drivers were in an invidious position. They were, one union leader said, being "starved back to work".
Dundee's drivers called off their strike just 10 days in and on April 9, after 13 weeks, Glasgow's followed suit.
They received no wage increase, no improved conditions and no promises of future talks but did agree to extra overtime work worth around £80 per week to clear up the rubbish. They had lost around £600 each in earnings, around £4,500 in today's money.
Glasgow, meanwhile, was left with the bill for the deployment of the army - 2000 men from 55 corps and regiments - which initial estimates put as high as £500k.
The drivers returned to work on April 14 after what the Daily Record's industrial editor called 'The battle that nobody won'.
The affair arguably set the scene for the 'winter of discontent' in 1978-79 and Margaret Thatcher's subsequent war on the trades unions, culminating in the 1984-85 miner's strike.
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