From several provinces, they demand that a mobilization like that in the capital be called.
14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguín, October 6, 2025 — This weekend’s garbage collection “offensive” in Havana is having an unwelcome effect on the authorities. Residents in several provinces are clamoring for a similar mobilization to clear their streets of the mountains of waste. In the city of Holguín, more than a troop of military recruits and Young Communist League members, people are demanding a long-term strategy to end the problem of the accumulation of garbage.
Next to the bakery in the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood, very close to the Alberto Sosa González high school and pre-university, the garbage has been piling up for weeks, under the worried gaze of residents and the feast of the mangy turkey vultures. Also just a few meters from a daycare center, the trash blocks almost all the traffic on the street, and its stench forces one to quicken one’s pace when walking nearby. “Díaz-Canel, send in the Special Troops battalion!” said a grumpy bread vendor trying to squeeze through the narrow space between the filth and the sidewalk on his bicycle, loaded with merchandise.
“Here they asphyxiated most of the private individuals who had horse-drawn carts and were providing garbage collection services.”
The images of the volunteer work carried out this Saturday in the Cuban capital by Foreign Ministry personnel, young soldiers, members of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the CDRs, and even high-ranking officials dressed in their impeccable uniforms have been like salt in the wound for the people of Holguín, who complain of the constant neglect of their province and the lack of resources to keep the communal services running. “Here, they suffocated most of the private individuals who had horse-drawn carts and provided garbage collection services. They raised the costs of all supplies, and people left,” a resident of Pueblo Nuevo told this newspaper.
For the woman, the current situation requires more than a “momentary outburst” and demands that although “this isn’t Havana, they should send the military to collect the trash.” In the few minutes that the neighbor approaches the dumpster to check its extent, the mountain of waste grows a little larger because a nearby MSME [small private business] dumps several empty boxes that once contained frozen chicken, a young man throws away debris from a demolition project, and another passerby throws some freshly pruned branches from a garden. The already heightened spectacle greets teenagers leaving the nearby school after the bell rings to end the morning session.
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