Cuba: Accumulation of waste pollutes an overwhelmed Havana

Piles of garbage with a foul stench: Havana is facing a garbage management crisis, another symptom of the shortage of fuel and spare parts from which the island is suffering, in the grip of serious economic difficulties.

Every day, in the city of 2.1 million people, more than 30,000 cubic metres of waste accumulate, 7,000 more than a year ago, according to official figures.

“My kitchen faces the bins, we have to cover everything because otherwise we eat dirt and midges,” Lissette Valle, a 40-year-old housewife from the central Cerro neighbourhood, told AFP.

With no bins, neighbours throw their bags of rubbish directly under her window, worsening the already pervasive stench caused by the sewage overflowing from the sewers.

According to data from the provincial directorate of communal services, the capital currently has only 57% of the equipment – including 100 dump trucks – intended for waste collection.

Supplied by Japan, the vehicles began to break down last year. Due to the US embargo, it is impossible to obtain the parts needed to repair them, local authorities recently explained to the state newspaper Granma.

In addition, the severe gasoline shortage that has affected the communist island since 2023 complicates collection. “There is a problem that is hitting us: fuel,” Miguel Gutiérrez Lara, head of supervision and inspection in Havana, notes in Granma.

A pile of garbage on a street in Havana, on August 21, 2024 in Cuba © AFP – YAMIL LAGE

The latter also highlights the lack of workers in the sector due to low wages.

At least five of Havana's 15 neighborhoods do not have a garbage collection coordinator and are therefore in a “complex situation,” he assures.

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Cuba is facing its worst economic crisis in three decades, due in part to tougher sanctions from Washington and structural weaknesses in its centralized economy.

– At the bottom of the sea –

“We expose ourselves to bacteria” for a minimum wage equivalent to $17 a month, laments a 30-year-old street sweeper who prefers not to reveal his name, complaining that he does not even have gloves to work with.

A woman walks past a pile of garbage on a street in Havana, Cuba on August 21, 2024 © AFP – YAMIL LAGE

“It's a dump in the streets,” he says, before slowly walking away with his rickety cart full of garbage.

“It's gotten out of control,” diseases “are spreading (…) it's full of midges,” warns Jesus Jiménez, a 61-year-old disease prevention inspector, who is particularly concerned about the spread of Oropouche fever, a viral disease transmitted by bites from infected midges and mosquitoes.

The waste problem is also acute on the coast near the capital. Reinier Fuentes emerges from the crystal clear waters of Guanabo Beach with his flippers in one hand and cans and other trash in the other.

A diver collects trash on a beach in Havana, Cuba, on August 20, 2024 © AFP – ADALBERTO ROQUE

“On the beach there are companies that are dedicate to cleaning (…) but at the bottom of the sea there is no one who does it except volunteers,” the president of an organization that helps clean the seabed of the Havana coastline told AFP.

The accumulation of metals is currently “abundant” and constitutes the greatest challenge on the coasts, recognizes the head of natural resources and climate change in Havana, Solvieg Rodriguez.

For Dulce Buergo, president of the Cuban National Commission for UNESCO, part of the solution lies in greater civic-mindedness. “If you come to the beach with four bags, you have to leave with four bags, even if the fourth is garbage.”

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