Our Trash

By Irina Pino

HAVANA TIMES – Routine is something that repeats itself, that’s why it’s called that. However, sometimes unforeseen events occur. This breaks these repetitive actions in our lives. Today, for example, the trash nearby caught fire. There are three garbage bins at the corner near my apartment building. Someone threw a cigarette butt, either accidentally or on purpose, into the bins without lids, which were full of papers and other debris scattered on the ground.

Several neighbors got scared and threw buckets of water; I myself threw two, but the flames continued. The fire even began to spread. Then, a couple of CVP (Surveillance and Protection Corps) from CIMEX used a fire extinguisher, but they couldn’t put it out either. Only the firefighters managed to extinguish the fire. They acted quickly, with the strong water jets from their hoses, until the fire was completely out. Luckily, it didn’t happen at night.

After a while, a truck and a bulldozer appeared to clean up the mess. The ones in charge of cleaning were young men from military service, not from the city communal service. Now they are made to do tasks that don’t belong to them. Poor guys!

The trash situation is a multiplying problem. In the neighborhoods, overflowing and broken trash bins are everywhere. Most remain overturned for days and weeks. This causes people to throw garbage on top of them. Then everything worsens, and the food waste starts to rot.

On the block where the ration store on 6th Street in Miramar is located, the trash hasn’t been collected for almost a month.

Here, something peculiar happens; they have placed two CIMEX corporation bins next to the one that belongs to us. The state institution is supposed to have its bins in its parking lot. However, for their convenience, they placed these collectors farther away. And it turns out they are always filled with paper bags, papers that are not recycled, and as I once wrote, could be used for bookmaking. Yet, the institution has the luxury of throwing them away.

Then come the so-called divers, the garbage pickers, who steal the bags to resell. As a result, these sheets of paper scatter all over the block. It’s a long chain of actions that contribute to the disorder and filth of the surroundings.

As a curious fact, I’ll tell you that all the CIMEX workers are given the opportunity, from time to time, to buy products that the general population doesn’t have access to unless they buy them at higher prices in the private or the government’s MLC (magnetic dollar) stores. I observe the distribution line from my window. They are given bottles of oil, hygiene products, soft drinks, and even containers of yogurt. The products come packaged in boxes, and later, these boxes go to the trash, and since there are so many, they don’t fit in the bins, so they remain outside, like cardboard mountains.

On the other hand, the indiscipline of young people who come to swim on the coast during this vacation period, precisely behind the CIMEX building, where there is a natural pool adds to the problem. They also act out, kicking and knocking over the bins every now and then, as if it were something funny.

In this area, people leave the La Puntilla Shopping Center with cans of soda, beers, and snacks in hand, which they throw on the sidewalk after consuming, with tremendous naturalness, as if it were allowed. And if by chance someone calls their attention, they react aggressively, or they just ignore it and walk away. People have become dirty and lack formal education.

Not even during the Special Period crisis of the 1990s, did I see this situation. On the contrary, the garbage collectors were metallic and had lids. Much less did this consumer society of soda and beer cans exist. I think humanity was cleaner and more orderly.

I don’t know how things are in other cities in the country, but all of Havana is a dump, and no mayor, president of the Popular Power, or even Communal Services seems to care about this filth. Then they say on the news that new diseases have appeared, along with the proliferation of mosquitoes and rats…

Read more from the diary of Irina Pino here.