The Cuban comedian Ulises Toirac posted a photograph on Facebook this Wednesday showing three municipal containers overflowing with garbage on a street in Havana, accompanied by a single phrase: “What irony! With so many garbage eaters around”.
The publication arrived on the same day that the 470 deputies of the National Assembly of People's Power were meeting at the Convention Palace to celebrate their VII Ordinary Period of Sessions.
The double meaning of the term "comebasura" —someone who eats garbage out of misery, but also a colloquial insult for someone who is useless— did not go unnoticed among his followers, who immediately connected the irony with the parliamentarians and regime leaders gathered that day in Havana.
The coincidence is hard to ignore. While the deputies were debating the execution of the 2026 State Budget, the Agricultural and Forestry Land Law, the Labor Code, and the Housing Law during the parliamentary session, Havana is facing a waste crisis with no solution in sight: the city generates between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters of garbage per day, but the system only processes between 16,000 and 17,000, leaving up to 23,814 cubic meters of waste uncollected daily.
The collapse has a specific cause: only 44 out of the 106 collection trucks are operating in the streets of Havana, the remainder is out of service due to fuel shortages and mechanical failure.
In another video published earlier, Toirac had denounced the same issue with a rhyme: “In every block a trash pile / in every neighborhood an infection,” referring to the collapse of waste collection in the capital.
The publication this Wednesday is not an isolated incident. Throughout July, Toirac has intensified his criticisms of the leadership and denounced the harsh reality that Cubans endure.
On July 18, he challenged Cuban leaders to live like the people: to move to neighborhoods like Palo Cagao, Old Havana, or La Lisa, travel by rickshaw, and forgo preferential access to electricity, water, solar panels, and free food.
On July 25, he sarcastically remarked about the blackouts, saying that "there is no tunnel." On July 26, he mocked the power outage that occurred precisely on the day of the national holiday.
In June 2026, when Parliament approved a package of 176 economic measures, Toirac asked, "What the hell are they serving for snacks in that Assembly?" And in July 2025, he already warned that in that body "the fear of dissent, of opposing, of being uncomfortable... is criminalized."
This Wednesday's session also carries a particular symbolic weight: it is held days after the anniversary of the assault on the Moncada Barracks, amid a public services crisis that affects millions of Cubans, and with a parliamentary agenda that promises economic and social transformations that most residents of Havana do not see reflected in their daily lives.
The image of the overflowing containers, published on the same day that the deputies held a session, captures in a single photograph what Toirac has been expressing in words for weeks.
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