Cuba Is Facing A Garbage Collapse
- 1.06.2026, 19:31
The island is turning into a huge dump.
Cuba is facing a garbage collapse due to Donald Trump's fuel embargo, writes The New York Times. In Havana, trash piles more than a meter high and up to half a block long have become a familiar part of the cityscape. The problem is particularly noticeable in densely populated neighborhoods - Central Havana and the municipality of Cerro. In one neighborhood in Cerro, two spontaneous dumps compete with each other: one stretches 36 meters on the worst days. Residents are increasingly setting fire to waste directly on the streets. In February, the Cuban Center for Neuroscience warned that toxic smoke from burning garbage in cities can cause neurological disorders in children.
The Cuban authorities attribute the situation primarily to fuel shortages. The crisis sharply intensified after the US administration cut off Havana's access to oil from Venezuela, its largest supplier. The U.S. also threatened to impose duties on any other country. That caused Mexico to halt fuel shipments. Those decisions have caused fuel shortages for utilities, Cuban authorities say.
Waste problems have been around long before Donald Trump returned to the White House. In 2014, the government newspaper Granma attributed the instability of solid waste collection to a shortage of containers and special equipment. According to authorities, Havana needed up to 30,000 trash containers, while the city had only 10,000. Many of them were in poor condition.
The situation is also worsening with machinery. In 2019, Japan donated 100 garbage trucks to Cuba, but after five years they began to fail. This year in Havana, only 44 out of 106 garbage trucks remained serviceable. Cuban authorities promised that the state metallurgical company would produce 40 new garbage trucks, and also began to involve the military and workers of state enterprises idle due to lack of fuel in garbage collection. Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero last year acknowledged the difficulties. "It's true that we lack resources, but we also lacked initiative, higher standards," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Cubadebate newspaper. Economist Ricardo Torres of American University believes Cuba's garbage problem has been around for a long time. "For as long as I can remember," he said.
Cuba now faces growing sanitation risks. Garbage piles and standing water attract flies, mosquitoes and rodents, and the state of the health system remains dire. Local media have already linked the rise in unsanitary conditions to dengue, Zika, chikungunya and oropushu fevers, as well as increased cases of vomiting and diarrhea and rodent-related leptospirosis. A new wave of mosquito-borne diseases could hit the country in the summer.