Due to the inability to collect waste with trucks due to a lack of fuel, residents and delegates from the neighborhood Casino Deportivo, in the Cerro municipality of Havana, organized on their own a community alternative for garbage collection that is circulating on social media this Sunday.
The video, posted by the citizen Xochit Vega Salermo on Facebook, shows the dynamics of the operation in 16 seconds while a voice calls out to the residents: "The trash, the trash! Bring the trash, let’s go!".
The author herself explains the origin of the initiative. "The strategy emerged from the neighborhood, involving the delegates and the residents," and she calls for its expansion: "La Víbora, my neighborhood needs it too."
The public response to the video reflects both support and the urgency to replicate the model in other areas of the capital.
A neighbor from Vedado wrote: "Very good initiative, we need creativity here... I will suggest." Another added: "It would be ideal if more people joined in."
The initiative arises amidst a structural collapse of waste collection in Havana that has worsened throughout 2025 and 2026.
In February of this year, only 44 out of the 106 garbage collection trucks in the capital were operational due to a lack of fuel and the deterioration of the vehicle fleet.
The city generates between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters of solid waste per day, but has only 10,000 containers when it would need between 20,000 and 30,000.
In December, following a meeting chaired by the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel, the regime itself admitted that it cannot clean the capital nor pay the street sweepers fairly.
That same month, out of 126 planned garbage bins, only 31 were produced, and of the 1,000 promised carts, only 40 were completed.
This Sunday, while the Sports Casino showcased its community solution, journalist Frank Padrón Nodarse reported on a makeshift dump next to a Children's Circle at the corner of 25 and H, in Vedado.
The garbage bin on Virtudes Street in Centro Habana has been overflowing for at least nine months, and on May 17, a fire of waste in Los Sitios once again highlighted the collapse of the system.
Cubans reacting to the massive accumulation of garbage express their despair and frustration. "I will never understand how the government can't manage the collection and cleaning," wrote a citizen on social media. Another warned: "And now the rains, and then the epidemics, and there are no resources to address the situation."
Epidemiologists link the accumulation of waste to outbreaks of leptospirosis, hepatitis A, dengue, and oropouche, diseases whose risk is amplified during the rainy season that begins in June.
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