In Havana, more than 35,000 cubic meters of garbage that had piled up on the streets for months was collected
14ymedio, Madrid, 7 October 2025 — Perhaps Diosdado Venero Cruz, a simple street sweeper from Cienfuegos, never imagined he would be the protagonist of a video on the nightly news show Noticiero Estelar for his work, but today his work has become the most important on the island. In this Municipal employee’s opinion, the carelessness of the population – who throw garbage at odd hours or where they shouldn’t – does little to help the alarming deficiencies with which the company must maintain the health of the municipality, while viruses spread throughout the country.
According to Canal Caribe, the city once had the honor of being the cleanest in Cuba, but today, trash dumps are part of its landscape, as they are throughout the country.
The deputy director of Municipalities laments that the government doesn’t even send inspectors or issue fines, and that they face an extremely precarious situation due to a lack of labor. This is why they have been mobilizing “trusted workers” for months, as the prisoner work program is called.
The director of Municipalities states that for years they have also partnered with construction companies, which have industrial machinery to remove the enormous amounts of garbage. He explains that there are more than 96 areas considered micro-dumps, and even if they are eliminated, they will continue to multiply. The director is very clear in his approach: it is impossible to collect garbage daily because there are no vehicles, equipment, or fuel. In his opinion, the only solution is for the law to be enforced and for the State to send reinforcements.
The five-minute video features a backdrop of veritable avalanches of garbage, an issue that alarms, belatedly, the authorities.
The data is devastating: the province should have a workforce of 290 street sweepers, but there are only 160; the city needs 200, but there are 93. The average salary is 3,700 pesos (about eight dollars), a little more than what a carton of eggs cost at La Calzada market in that city the last week of September. Diosdado Venero, the hero of the report, has decided to take on three routes alone, and for that he takes home 8,000 pesos.
The five-minute video features a backdrop of veritable avalanches of garbage, an issue that has belatedly alarmed authorities to the point that this weekend Miguel Díaz-Canel took up a shovel and rake to exemplify the efforts required to maintain sanitation in cities. The capital, mired in mountains of waste for years—as this newspaper and other independent media outlets have reported until the official press took note of the evidence—is threatened with an epidemiological situation as serious as that in Matanzas, where another ejército de salvación [rescue army], this time a health rescue, was mobilized this Monday.
“Groups of health professionals will arrive in Matanzas to support the response to the province’s complicated epidemiological situation. Several municipalities [in this province] have high numbers of sick people as a result of the proliferation of mosquitoes,” journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso announced on his social media. Díaz-Canel had already warned: “Everyone is deployed on the ground,” he said, according to the press, referring to Havana and Matanzas, “also hit by arboviruses.”
A day after sweeping the streets of the capital, Díaz-Canel met with provincial authorities to review the work, as well as other collateral issues affecting the country’s dire virus situation, including the water supply. This weekend, more than 35,000 cubic meters of waste were collected in the city—according to a Canal Caribe report, Cienfuegos generates 500 cubic meters daily, double that amount if construction waste is included—requiring the mobilization of 910 resources, 822 of which were “provided by organizations.”
The source was not specified, but 119 water trucks also appeared, 47 more than the number up to that date. First Deputy Minister Ines María Chapman Waugh stated that the water supply problems will be gradually resolved and even stated that this weekend alone, 111,023 fewer people were affected by the lack of water, although 156,725 remain without.
“The fundamental challenge,” said Díaz-Canel in a supposedly motivational speech, “is to transform these mobilizations into a sustainable and systematic strategy that effectively combines political will, resource allocation, institutional efficiency, and citizen co-responsibility. Havana must continue working with civic responsibility, ensuring that everyone joins the movement for a cleaner and healthier Havana.”
Marrero expressed sentiments along the same line, stressing the importance of “responding to difficulties such as the low technical availability of specialized municipal vehicles.”
Marrero expressed sentiments along the same line, stressing the importance of “responding to difficulties such as the low technical availability of specialized municipal vehicles,” although he did not explain how nor who should be responsible for solving the shortages.
The sanitation effort and the solution to other problems in the capital are revealing “our own shortcomings,” Díaz-Canel admitted in a more subdued tone. “There are things that need to be done every day and aren’t,” he added, lamenting the lack of “a culture of attention to detail.”
Although concern about the epidemiological situation in Matanzas is extreme at this time, reports of all kinds of viruses are coming in via social media from all over the island. The power outages, water supply problems, poor garbage collection, and inadequate fumigation are the ideal breeding ground for disease. But Havana, with more than 1,750,000 inhabitants, is a source of concern. Greatly.
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