Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, November 1, 2026 — Residents near Brasil and Honduras in 5 de Diciembre report five days without garbage collection, with waste piling up on sidewalks and the street.
The continuing interruption has left residents and businesses dealing with decomposing household and commercial waste, unpleasant odors, and animals tearing open garbage bags.
The accumulation has spread beyond the sidewalk and onto the roadway. Neighbors say the smell is reaching nearby homes and businesses, while animals searching for food scatter garbage across the area.
Residents are demanding immediate intervention from municipal public services. They want collection restored and the affected intersection cleaned and disinfected to prevent additional sanitation problems.
The complaint raises a question that has become increasingly familiar in Puerto Vallarta: Why are residents still experiencing prolonged interruptions in a basic public service months after the municipal government assumed responsibility for garbage collection?
The latest situation is particularly frustrating because 5 de Diciembre has already been the subject of repeated complaints about missed pickups.
On October 28, similar problems affected businesses elsewhere in the neighborhood. Merchants reported that accumulated garbage and odors discouraged customers, even as they tried to keep their entrances clean.
The following day, Vallarta Daily reported complaints from both 5 de Diciembre and Lázaro Cárdenas, indicating that collection problems were not limited to one intersection.
The problems also have a longer history.
In September, Vallarta Daily covered another three-day interruption near Brasil and Panamá. Residents at that time complained not only about missed collections but also about unpredictable arrival times, with trucks reportedly appearing at different hours.
A separate September 9 report described complaints of more than 20 days without collection at Brasilia and Guayabo. In that case, a resident reported that garbage trucks were serving nearby locations while leaving waste at the affected intersection.
These were separate incidents at different locations, rather than evidence of one continuous interruption. Together, however, they establish a recurring pattern of service complaints within the neighborhood.
The municipal government now bears responsibility for resolving those problems.
In March, Mayor Luis Munguía announced that Puerto Vallarta would take garbage collection back under municipal control beginning April 1, ending the city’s arrangement with private contractor Red Ambiental.
The transition followed months of disputes over payments and service performance. Municipal officials subsequently faced the challenge of organizing collection routes, securing vehicles and staffing the service.
In May, officials acknowledged staffing shortages while managing 49 collection routes with approximately 170 employees. Those figures described the situation during the transition, rather than the department’s current capacity.
The city attempted to address continued complaints by revising collection schedules again in July.
Under the collection timetable, 5 de Diciembre was listed for pickups on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays beginning at 6:30 a.m.
That schedule means a five-day interruption would extend across multiple designated collection days, rather than simply reflecting the normal interval between pickups.
The government also instructed residents to place their garbage outside only at the designated times. The purpose was to prevent waste from sitting on sidewalks for extended periods, attracting animals and creating odors.
But that arrangement depends on collection trucks arriving as scheduled.
For a household, the decision is relatively straightforward when pickup times are reliable. Residents can keep their garbage secured until shortly before collection. When trucks repeatedly fail to appear, that system becomes difficult to maintain, particularly for homes and businesses producing food waste.
The problem becomes more complicated once animals begin tearing open bags.
A collection truck can remove intact bags, but garbage scattered across sidewalks and pavement may require additional cleanup. That is why residents at Brasil and Honduras are requesting sanitation work as well as the resumption of normal collection.
The complaints also raise public health concerns. Decomposing organic waste can attract insects and rodents, while discarded material creates conditions that become harder to manage the longer collection is delayed. The reported conditions do not, by themselves, establish that a disease outbreak or infestation has occurred.
Sunday’s published report did not provide a municipal explanation for the missed collections at Brasil and Honduras or an announced timetable for clearing the accumulated waste.
That leaves residents without a clear answer about when the service will return or whether the same interruption could happen again.
For municipal officials, clearing the intersection would address the immediate complaint. Keeping the published collection schedule would address the larger concern that residents have raised repeatedly since September.
For the households and businesses near Brasil and Honduras, the immediate priority is simpler: removing five days of accumulated garbage, including the waste that animals have already scattered across the street.
