A video published this Saturday on Facebook shows Escobar Street at the exit of Belascoaín, in Centro Habana, transformed into an open-air dump: the roadway appears flooded with dark greenish wastewater, while huge piles of waste —cardboard, plastics, furniture remnants, bags, and debris— occupy both the sidewalks and the street.
The 25-second clip was shared by the user Pupito Ensy in the group "BASTA YA !!!!! LIBERTAD PARA CUBA" and succinctly captures what the images already convey: "Escobar coming out of Belascoaín, this is the new garbage dump you see. Trash keeps coming in here, this is how Cuba is, a total mess."
In the background of the scene, colonial buildings with balconies and columns stand out in a severe state of disrepair: peeling walls, worn paint, and structures that seem on the verge of collapse.
The area of Escobar and Belascoaín is not an isolated or recent case. In June, a mountain of trash blocked the intersection of San José and Escobar, and days later, the residents of Escobar and San Miguel erected barricades and set piles of waste on fire in the middle of the street during protests against the blackouts.
This Saturday, another large dump site was documented at the intersection of Águila and Estrella, also in Centro Habana, confirming that the issue is widespread throughout the municipality.
The root of the crisis is structural. Since early 2026, only 44 of the 106 garbage trucks in the capital were operational — just 41% of the fleet — halted due to a shortage of diesel and mechanical deterioration. The city generates between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters of waste daily, of which up to 23,814 m³ remain uncollected each day.
This is compounded by the lack of containers: Havana has around 10,000 when it needs between 20,000 and 30,000, according to estimates cited by specialized media. The residents experience this daily; as Pupito Ensy highlighted in his post, "the neighborhoods continue without garbage cans."
The regime attempted a response last week: Vice Prime Minister Inés María Chapman led a ceremony where 20 collection trucks from China and more than 240 new containers were presented, with an investment reportedly exceeding one million euros according to state television. However, the authorities themselves admitted that the measure does not address the underlying problem.
The video from Escobar Street, published just a week after that ceremony, starkly illustrates this admission. By September 2025, the minister of CITMA had publicly acknowledged that “the garbage is spread all over” the city, describing it as a health and environmental risk. A year later, the situation in the neighborhoods of Centro Habana has not changed.
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