A fire consumed part of the accumulated garbage on the corner of 15 and K in El Vedado this Saturday, near the national headquarters of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), in another incident that highlights the decline of public services in Havana.
The citizen Cesario Navas shared images of the fire through his profile on Facebook and stated that this kind of incident occurs frequently in the large makeshift dumps that proliferate throughout the capital.
According to reports, the fire affected several new waste containers and required the intervention of a fire brigade.
The trash bin is located at the back of the national headquarters of the CDR, in front of a building of the Ministry of the Interior where the General Directorate of Penitentiary Establishments is situated, he noted.
For Navas, it is "incoherent" that an accumulation of trash of that magnitude remains for months next to the main office of the CDR without any visible solutions being adopted.
In his post, the activist described a city marked by the accumulation of waste, landfill fires, blackouts, and shortages of water, food, and medicine. "Cuba is suffering! Enough, enough!" he wrote.
The comments on the post support that perception. Several residents stated that the trash dump has been occupying the corner for months and reported that vehicles could barely pass through the area due to the amount of waste piled up.
Others described the state of neglect of the place as "shameful" and questioned the lack of actions from those responsible for the CDR.
The irony is significant, as this corner is located within the coverage area of the Rampa Popular Council, the same one that just two weeks earlier launched with great fanfare the pilot test of El Rampeño, a local development project that uses electric tricycles for door-to-door solid waste collection in Vedado.
The project started on July 6 with only five of the 30 tricycles planned, charging 100 pesos per month per household and starting at 15,000 pesos for private businesses.
State television and official media covered the launch enthusiastically, but the skepticism among the neighbors was evident from day one.
What happened at 15 and K is not an isolated case. On Saturday, the corner of Monte and Águila in Jesús María was also reported as an open-air dump, following the same pattern of accumulation.
In February, it was revealed that only 44 out of the 106 (41%) garbage collection trucks in the capital are operational due to a shortage of diesel and mechanical deterioration.
Havana generates between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters of solid waste each day, but up to 23,814 cubic meters remain uncollected daily, according to official data.
The health consequences are serious. Cuba ended 2025 with at least 81,909 cases of dengue and chikungunya, along with 65 official fatalities, and in 2026 the outbreak remains active with over 2,800 cases in 134 municipalities.
The historian Julio César González Pagés described the situation starkly: "Havana among trash and feces" arrives in summer with little water, hygiene, and medications, reviving the worst of its colonial era.
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