A garbage crisis engulfs Havana as fuel shortages stall trash pickup
[June 05, 2026]
By ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ
HAVANA (AP) — On a recent afternoon in Cuba, the temperature climbed and
anxiety grew among the residents of a Havana 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.
“What you’re looking at is depressing,” lamented María Odalys Ramírez, a
63-year-old who lives across the street from the capital's iconic
Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital. “The trash in this area, the flies, the
rats, the filth — it’s completely unsanitary.”
For months, residents of Havana — home to 2 million of Cuba’s almost 10
million residents — have lived with piles of garbage accumulating on
almost every street corner. The situation deteriorated after a U.S.
energy blockade triggered power outages, 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%.
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A man searches through a pile of trash for items to salvage in
Havana, Cuba, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
The “improper management of urban solid waste” 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.
“The fundamental impact of this project is proving to the community
that it can be done,” said Evelyn Martínez, a collaborator at El
Batazo. “It is entirely possible to live in a cleaner environment,
give value to what we call ‘trash' and put it to good use.”
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