HAVANA (AP) 鈥� On a recent afternoon in Cuba, the temperature climbed and anxiety grew among the residents of a street.
Their focus was an improvised dump site on the sidewalk with rotting food scraps, torn bags, cardboard and rubble. Swarms of flies and stray cats gathered around the trash whose stench wafted on the breeze from the nearby sea.
鈥淲hat you鈥檙e looking at is depressing,鈥� lamented Mar铆a Odalys Ram铆rez, a 63-year-old who lives across the street from the capital’s iconic Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital. 鈥淭he trash in this area, the flies, the rats, the filth 鈥� it鈥檚 completely unsanitary.鈥�
For months, residents of Havana 鈥� home to 2 million of Cuba鈥檚 almost 10 million residents 鈥� have lived with piles of garbage accumulating on almost every street corner. The situation deteriorated after a triggered , water shortages and a fuel crisis that brought state-run garbage trucks to a standstill.
Without garbage collection, residents have begun burning waste in the streets, raising alarm among health officials over potentially toxic smoke.
Residents fear the coming months will bring worse conditions as summer heat intensifies and hurricane season begins.
A citywide tour by The Associated Press revealed identical scenes across Havana neighborhoods where locals said garbage trucks pass only irregularly.
In the city center and on the outskirts, cars, bicycles and pedestrians weave around the trash piles. Others pick through it, hoping to salvage something useful.
Havana as of last July was producing the equivalent of about 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools of solid waste every day, according to the latest municipal figures available. Even then, municipal services collected just 57%.
The 鈥渋mproper management of urban solid waste鈥� has been identified as a primary environmental challenge in Cuba’s national strategy, said Odalys Goicochea, an official at the ministry of science, technology and the environment.
Now, Goicochea warned, the current garbage collection situation, combined with rising temperatures and impending rains, could worsen the situation. The heat and moisture threaten to trigger a proliferation of disease-carrying flies and mosquitoes.
The crisis has sparked citizen initiatives to clean up neighborhoods.
One is El Batazo, an initiative operating across eight Havana blocks. A collector rings a bell twice daily to pick up pre-sorted household trash, while other project members sweep the streets.
Members then sell recyclable raw materials like aluminum and glass, repurpose food scraps to feed livestock and place the remaining trash into a container for later transport to a landfill.
鈥淭he fundamental impact of this project is proving to the community that it can be done,鈥� said Evelyn Mart铆nez, a collaborator at El Batazo. 鈥淚t is entirely possible to live in a cleaner environment, give value to what we call 鈥榯rash’ and put it to good use.鈥�
___
Follow AP鈥檚 coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
