From our Bureau of Socialist Apartheid Refuse Handling with some assistance from our Bureau of Socialist Environmental Policies
Castro, Inc. allows so many tons of garbage to pile up in Havana that an environmental disaster of colossal proportions seems inevitable. Of course, this uncollected trash is only piling up in neighborhoods where oligarchs, diplomats, and tourists never set foot. So, add this item to the long list of apartheid policies pursued by Castro, Inc.
Only superior beings from abroad and native top dogs can expect to have trash-free streets. All others will just have to adjust to the cold hard fact that they are destined to die of mosquito- and vermin-borne illnesses or starve to death surrounded by stinking piles of garbage.
Loosely translated from CiberCuba
A study by Cuba Siglo 21 ensures that the capital of the island has become a “critical focus of health insecurity” because street-level landfills promote the proliferation of rats and mosquitoes, dengue and leptospirosis, and cause urban fires due to methane gas production.
Havana produces 23,000 cubic meters (m3) of garbage every day, but the Cuban regime only collects 68% of this urban waste. That means that 32% (7,600 m3, equivalent to three Olympic swimming pools) remains on the streets, turning the capital of the island into “a critical focus of health insecurity” due to the proliferation of rodents and mosquitoes, carriers of diseases such as dengue and leptospirosis, as well as causing fires due to methane gas production. This was also seen in Lawton earlier this year in 2024 when residents set fire to a landfill.
This is stated in the report ‘Havana, capital of waste’, which the Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit (OCAC), advised by the think tank Cuba Siglo 21, has compiled and published this April, after conducting fieldwork in the 15 municipal districts of the capital. On their website, they include an interactive map where by clicking on trash symbols, one can see photos of the landfills found.
The study clarifies that it’s not just about not collecting a third of the garbage generated in Havana, but also that of what is collected, less than half is recycled (40%). It’s influenced by the fact that the budget allocated to garbage collection in 2022 represented 0.83% (6.5 million pesos) of the total money available to the capital. Overall, only 1.63% of the annual total was allocated to the environment. According to the report’s signatories, this amount is “clearly minuscule.”
According to the report, attempts at foreign investment in garbage collection have not materialized, and furthermore, the Japanese donation of 10 million dollars between 2019 and 2020 has not been felt. In practice, the streets are getting dirtier. In fact, the provincial director of Communal Services, Onelio de Jesús Ojeda, admitted in 2023 that almost 200 garbage collection teams are inactive. It also influences that low wages (3,500 pesos per month, equivalent to 10 dollars) have made garbage collection a job done only by prisoners.
Continue reading HERE in Spanish
The failed, dystopian, third-world shithole Cuba is the only one younger Cubans on the island know, and I expect they see it as a hopeless mess. That’s one reason they’re so eager to leave it, but also one reason why they don’t care about helping to maintain Castro, Inc. once they do. I mean, shit is shit, right?