A fetid stench is festering through Sydney's inner-city streets after garbage workers left 35,000 bins uncollected during a second week of strikes.
Garbos working in the City of Sydney are taking action for a pay rise and better working conditions.
Transport Workers Union NSW/QLD secretary Richard Olsen said the situation had hit crisis point.
"The community relies on an efficient service, but for months chronic worker shortages caused by poor pay and conditions have resulted in a serious build-up of rubbish, leaving the community concerned for hygiene, health and safety," he said on Tuesday.
The City of Sydney outsources its rubbish collection to Cleanaway, an international waste management company that maintains contracts with local councils across the country.
However, the council has insisted the issue is between the waste contractor and its staff.
Locals have been encouraged to put their bins out as usual, but delays caused by industrial action have left them uncollected for days and excess household rubbish has begun to spill onto streets.
Warmer weather has caused bags of rubbish to ferment, with Waterloo residents complaining about maggot infestations in apartment garbage rooms.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore said Cleanaway usually had an excellent track record.
"(But) due to a range of factors - some within their control and some outside their control - the expected standards of the city have not been met of late," she said.
She has met the company and urged it resolve the dispute.
But Mr Olsen has called on the Lord Mayor to reconsider her refusal to meet workers and to do "what is best for the community".
"Clover Moore can't just sweep the crisis in City of Sydney's waste collection under the rug," he said.
"The City of Sydney holds the purse strings. That's why we need Clover Moore to intervene and hold Cleanaway to account for sustainable pay and conditions."
Cleanaway had made an offer to workers and a formal employee voting process had begun, the Lord Mayor's office said.
But the TWU says the company has refused to solve other issues that would leave workers worse off.
Cleanaway staff in other jurisdictions such as Erskine Park in Sydney's west and parts of Queensland have also taken industrial action in recent weeks.
An estimated 95 per cent of local councils in NSW contract external waste contractors to collect household rubbish.
The council said public waste disposal management - such as street litter bins and footpath cleaning services - would remain unaffected by industrial action because those workers were City of Sydney staff.
