The Cuban comedian Ulises Toirac posted on Facebook this Wednesday a photograph of three municipal containers completely 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 gathering 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 worthless— did not go unnoticed among his followers, who immediately connected the irony to the parliamentarians and regime leaders gathered that day in Havana.
The coincidence is hard to overlook. While the deputies debated the execution of the State Budget 2026, the Agricultural and Forestry Land Law, the Labor Code, and the Housing Law in the parliamentary session, Havana is grappling with a waste crisis with no solution in sight: the city generates between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters of garbage each day, but the system only processes between 16,000 and 17,000, leaving up to 23,814 cubic meters uncollected daily.
The collapse has a specific cause: only 44 of the 106 collection trucks are operating on the streets of Havana, the rest are immobilized due to fuel shortages and mechanical failure.
In another video published this Wednesday, Toirac highlighted the same issue with a rhyme: "On every block a garbage pile / in every neighborhood an infection," referring to the collapse of waste collection in the capital.
The publication this Wednesday is not an isolated event. Throughout July, Toirac has intensified his criticisms of the leadership with an almost daily frequency.
On July 18, he challenged Cuban leaders to live like the people: to move to neighborhoods like Palo Cagao, Old Havana, or La Lisa, to travel by riquimbili, and to forego prioritized access to electricity, water, solar panels, and free food.
On July 25, he made a sarcastic remark about the blackouts, saying that "there is no tunnel." On July 26, he mocked the power outage that happened precisely on the day of the national holiday.
His view on the National Assembly is not new either. In June 2026, when the Parliament approved a package of 176 economic measures, Toirac asked, "What the hell are they serving as 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 takes place days after the anniversary of the assault on the Moncada Barracks, amid a public service crisis affecting millions of Cubans, and with a parliamentary agenda that promises economic and social transformations that the majority of Havana residents do not see reflected in their daily lives.
The image of the overflowing containers, published while the deputies were in session, captures in a single photograph what Toirac has been expressing in words for weeks.
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