The journalist and director of 14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, posted a video on her X account this Tuesday denouncing the open burning of trash in El Vedado, one of the most central neighborhoods in Havana, with the message: "This is what we breathe every day in this city."
In the clip, Sánchez shows columns of smoke in the middle of the street and warns that waste is piling up because the collection service has collapsed: "the burning trash, catching fire because it's not being collected, igniting on its own or being set on fire as a sign of popular outrage."
The report comes just nine days after firefighters had to intervene at the corner of 15 and K, in Vedado itself, to extinguish a fire in an improvised dump next to the national headquarters of the CDR and across from a Ministry of Interior building.
The collapse of the collection service has structural roots: since February of this year, only 44 of the 106 collection trucks in the capital have been operational, halted by a shortage of diesel and mechanical deterioration.
The city generates between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters of solid waste per day, but they were left uncollected up to 23,814 m³ daily, according to data reported throughout 2026.
Havana would require between 20,000 and 30,000 containers to manage that load, but it currently has only 10,000, a gap that explains the proliferation of improvised dumps in the streets, parks, and corners throughout the capital.
Faced with the inaction of the State, residents of multiple municipalities—Regla, Diez de Octubre, Lawton, San Miguel del Padrón, Puentes Grandes, Centro Habana, Cerro, and Vedado itself—have resorted to burning accumulated waste, a practice that in some cases has also become an act of protest.
On Monday, residents of Lawton burned garbage in the street during a protest, and in May, residents of Playa and El Vedado did the same amid protests over blackouts.
Incomplete combustion of waste releases carbon monoxide, dioxins, furans, and at least thirty toxic compounds, as warned by the Center for Neurosciences of Cuba in February 2026, with more serious effects on children, the elderly, and individuals with respiratory or cardiovascular diseases.
This month, the Food Monitor Program qualified the situation as a health emergency, also noting collapsed sewers and sewage running through the streets of several municipalities in Havana.
The Cuban Minister of Science, Technology, and Environment, Armando Rodríguez Batista, acknowledged on February 24, 2026, that burning "generates pollution, affects public health, and deteriorates the environment," although he assured that the government "does not encourage or promote" the practice.
The authorities certified 24 controlled incineration points as a temporary measure, according to an investigation by Infobae, yet this did not address the underlying issue.
This is not the first time Sánchez has documented this crisis: on April 15, he had already reported the burning of garbage in Havana with the phrase "Havana smells like burning garbage," showcasing a pile of burning waste from his balcony.
That El Vedado, historically one of the most prosperous neighborhoods in the capital, now experiences the same scenes as the most impoverished municipalities underscores the widespread impact of a health collapse that the Cuban regime has not been able to—and does not seem willing to—reverse.
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