The Cuban Cesáreo Navas y Morlanes posted on Facebook a complaint regarding the waste crisis in Havana, accompanied by images that show mountains of garbage piled up on streets with deteriorated colonial architecture, with overflowing sewage and open drains.
"La Habana has become a great dump and streets like Montes, Infanta, and Reina are notable for the numerous, polluting, and foul-smelling garbage piles located at the corners. What a stench, what a danger to the health of community members and passersby!" wrote Navas and Morlanes.
The testimony highlights specific points: the corner of Montes and Castillo, where the accumulation of waste has grown in height and extent as the sewage spills over the piles; and the old little park at Montes and Estévez, where the garbage spreads nearly to the center of the green area.
The author also denounces that the state-owned front loaders exacerbate the damage: they break curbs, destroy sidewalks, create deep holes, and even damage building columns and walls during collection operations.
"What incapacity, apathy, and negligence from the national and municipal leaders! Epidemics lurk and hang over our heads just like 'The Sword of Damocles,'" he added.
"Do the leaders of this highly questioned socio-political project have these painful pigsties in front of or next to their residences? Surely, they do not suffer from this other disgrace, nor are they affected by the lack of medications or selective hospitals and clinics. Blackouts and a shortage of water barely impact them, transportation and fuel are easily accessible, and when it comes to food, they have no complaints. Just by looking at their big bellies and rosy faces, we can see that they have enviable pantries well stocked with a variety of exquisite products. 'There is plenty here, sure—it's there, but it doesn't touch us!' they pointed out."
"What irony, what shamelessness when in their constant and overwhelming rhetoric (adorned with questionable patriotism), they ask us, they demand from us, support for the wicked purpose of preserving their privileges, their air-conditioned residences with pools, their trips abroad, their children and relatives with residences and properties in Europe and the Americas, their well-protected and authorized businesses (MiPYMES, farms, etc.), etc.!," he pointed out.
At the beginning of the year, only 44 out of the 106 garbage collection trucks in Havana were operational —only 41.5% of the fleet— due to a lack of diesel and mechanical deterioration, while the capital generates between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters of solid waste daily.
The situation has serious health consequences. Residents on Neptuno Street reported that "the mice look like cats" because of their size, amidst piles of garbage, worms, and rodents; and residents in the area between Ayestarán and Infanta alerted about a plague of rats that threatens homes and a nearby food production center.
In light of the collapse of state services, an official newspaper suggested that the people of Havana should pay 100 pesos for each private garbage collection, thereby shifting to citizens the cost of a responsibility that the State cannot — or does not want to — assume.
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