Burning garbage on San Lázaro Street in the Havana municipality of Centro Habana.

By Safie M. Gonzalez

HAVANA TIMES – “Driver, could you let me off at the next garbage dump?”

The remark came with unexpected naturalness from a passenger riding in a three-wheeled taxi along a Havana street. The woman didn’t seem to be making a joke; she had simply found a practical way to indicate where she wanted to get off.

A smile was inevitable.

But then an uncomfortable question arose: At what point did a garbage dump become a landmark on the city’s everyday map?

Because places change their meaning too. A street corner may be remembered for a neighborhood grocery store, a school, a park, or an old tree. But when a pile of garbage becomes a point of reference for giving directions, something in the urban landscape has begun to change.

Trash is no longer just something placed in a container and taken away after collection. For many residents, it has become a permanent presence: it occupies street corners, alters daily routes, and has become part of everyday conversation.

And when it remains for too long, another response appears: fire.

In different parts of Havana, some piles of garbage have ended up as makeshift bonfires. The flames reduce what takes up space, but they leave another trace behind: smoke rising above the streets, ashes left in their wake, and an odor that drifts into nearby homes.

What disappears from sight does not truly disappear.

It simply changes form.

The garbage that was once piled up on a street corner becomes mixed with the city’s air. Plastics, containers, and other materials found in those heaps release pollutants when burned, contaminating the environment and potentially affecting the health of those who live with these practices.

The scene reveals a contradiction that is difficult to ignore.

The fire attempts to solve one visible problem, but it creates another that cannot always be seen.

Behind every trash fire, there is also a human story. There is the person who has been waiting days for a solution. There is the resident trying to keep the garbage from continuing to grow in front of their home. There is the neighbor who closes a window because the smoke has reached the house.

To reduce it all to an individual decision would be to overlook the fact that these actions take place within a more complex reality: a city struggling to keep its shared spaces clean.

Havana has always had its own distinctive sounds and smells: old engines, voices in the streets, morning coffee, music drifting from a balcony.

Now, in some places, there is also the smell of burning garbage.

It is a quiet sign of a problem that does not end when the flames go out.

Because a city is built not only with its buildings and avenues, but also with the way it cares for the spaces where its residents live every day.

Perhaps the strangest thing is not that someone can ask to be dropped off at the next garbage dump.

What is truly unsettling is that everyone knows exactly which one she means.

Read more of Safie M. González’s diary here at Havana Times.