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Manual scavenging is a term used mainly in India for "manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling,
human excreta Human waste (or human excreta) refers to the waste products of the human digestive system, menses, and human metabolism including urine and faeces. As part of a sanitation system that is in place, human waste is collected, transported, treated a ...
in an insanitary
latrine A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground ( pit latrine), or ...
or in an open drain or sewer or in a septic tank or a pit". Manual scavengers usually use hand tools such as buckets, brooms and shovels. The workers have to move the excreta, using brooms and tin plates, into baskets, which they carry to disposal locations sometimes several kilometers away. The practice of employing human labour for cleaning of sewers and septic tanks is also prevalent in Bangladesh and Pakistan. These sanitation workers, called "manual scavengers", rarely have any
personal protective equipment Personal protective equipment (PPE) is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, e ...
. The work is regarded as a dehumanizing practice. The occupation of sanitation work is intrinsically linked with caste in India. All kinds of cleaning are considered lowly and are assigned to people from the lowest rung of the social hierarchy. In the caste-based society, it is mainly the
Dalits Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...
who work as sanitation workers - as manual scavengers, cleaners of drains, as garbage collectors and sweepers of roads.PRIA (2019)
Lived Realities of Women Sanitation Workers in India: Insights from a Participatory Research Conducted in Three Cities of India
Participatory Research in Asia, New Delhi, India
It was estimated in 2019 that between 40 to 60 percent of the 6 million households of Dalit sub-castes are engaged in sanitation work. The most common Dalit caste performing sanitation work is the
Valmiki Valmiki (; Sanskrit: वाल्मीकि, ) is celebrated as the harbinger-poet in Sanskrit literature. The epic ''Ramayana'', dated variously from the 5th century BCE to first century BCE, is attributed to him, based on the attributio ...
(also Balmiki) caste. The construction of
dry toilets A dry toilet (or non-flush toilet, no flush toilet or toilet without a flush) is a toilet which, unlike a flush toilet, does not use flush water. Dry toilets do not use water to move excreta along or block odors. They do not produce sewage, and a ...
and employment of manual scavengers to clean such dry toilets was prohibited in India in 1993. The law was extended and clarified to include ban on use of human labour for direct cleaning of sewers, ditches, pits and septic tanks in 2013. However, despite the laws, manual scavenging was reported in many states including Maharashtra,
Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
,
Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...
,
Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
, and
Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern s ...
in 2014. In 2021, the NHRC observed that eradication of manual scavenging as claimed by state and local governments is far from over. Government data shows that in the period 1993-2021, 971 people died due to cleaning of sewers and septic tanks. The term "manual scavenging" differs from the stand alone term "scavenging", which is one of the oldest economic activities and refers to the act of sorting though and picking from discarded waste. Sometimes called
waste picker A waste picker is a person who salvages reusable or recyclable materials thrown away by others to sell or for personal consumption. There are millions of waste pickers worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, but increasingly in post-i ...
s or ragpickers, scavengers usually collect from the streets, dumpsites, or landfills. They collect reusable and recyclable material to sell, reintegrating it into the economy's production process. The practice is reported to exist in cities and towns across the Global South.


Definition

Manual scavenging refers to the unsafe and manual removal of raw (fresh and untreated)
human excreta Human waste (or human excreta) refers to the waste products of the human digestive system, menses, and human metabolism including urine and faeces. As part of a sanitation system that is in place, human waste is collected, transported, treated a ...
from buckets or other containers that are used as
toilet A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popu ...
s or from the pits of simple
pit latrine A pit latrine, also known as pit toilet, is a type of toilet that collects human feces in a hole in the ground. Urine and feces enter the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for use ...
s. The safe and controlled emptying of pit latrines, on the other hand, is one component of
fecal sludge management Fecal sludge management (FSM) (or faecal sludge management in British English) is the storage, collection, transport, treatment and safe end use or disposal of fecal sludge. Together, the collection, transport, treatment and end use of fecal slud ...
. The official definition of a manual scavenger in Indian law from 1993 is as follows:
"manual scavenger" means a person engaged in or employed for manually carrying human excreta and the expression "manual scavenging" shall be construed accordingly
In 2013, the definition of manual scavenger was expanded to include persons employed in cleaning of septic tanks, open drains and railway tracks. It reads:
"Manual scavenger" means a person engaged or employed, at the commencement of this Act or at any time thereafter, by an individual or a local authority or an agency or a contractor, for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling in any manner, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or pit into which the human excreta from the insanitary latrines is disposed of, or railway track or in such other spaces or premises, as the Central Government or a State Government may notify, before the excreta fully decomposes in such manner as may be prescribed, and the expression “manual scavenging” shall be construed accordingly.
The definition ignores many other sanitation workers like fecal sludge handlers, community and public toilet cleaners, workers cleaning storm water drains, waste segregators, etc. Such workers are not required to handle excreta directly, but get in contact due to poor working conditions, lack of segregation, and the interconnectedness of excreta management with solid waste management and storm water management. The 2013 Act adds that a person engaged or employed to clean excreta with the help of equipment and using the protective gear as notified by the Union government shall not be deemed to be a manual scavenger. Bhasha Singh argues that this clause gives the government an escape clause as all forms of manual scavenging can be kept outside the purview of the law by arguing that the person are using protective gear. In 2021, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India advocated for the term to include other types of hazardous cleaning. There is a very clear gender division of various types of work that is called manual scavenging in India. The cleaning of dry toilets and carrying the waste to point of disposal is generally done by women, while men are involved in cleaning of septic tanks and sewers. There is an economic reason for this distribution - the municipality employs workers to clean sewers and septic tanks and hence the salary is better. Cleaning private toilets, on the other hand, pays little and is therefore handed over to the women. The women involved are referred to differently - 'dabbu-wali' in Bengal, 'balti-wali' in Kanpur, 'tina-wali in Bihar, tokri-wali in Punjab and Haryana, 'thottikar' in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, 'paaki' or 'peeti' in Odisha, 'vaatal' in Kashmir. These names directly refer to the tools (dabbu, balti, tokri) used by the women to carry waste or dustbin (thottikar) or excreta (paaki, peeti). Manual scavenging is done with basic tools like thin boards and either buckets or baskets lined with sacking and carried on the head. Due to the hazardous nature of the job, many of the workers have related health problems. Scavengers risk suffering from respiratory disorders, typhoid, and cholera. Scavengers may also contract skin and blood infections, eye and respiratory infections due to exposure to pollutants, skeletal disorder caused by the lifting of heavy storage containers, and burns due to coming into contact with hazardous chemicals combined with waste. The data obtained by Safai Karmachari Andolan for 2017-2018 found that the average age of deceased sewer workers to be around 32 years, that is, they do not even reach the age of retirement and a family often loses its breadwinner very early. Not all forms of
dry toilets A dry toilet (or non-flush toilet, no flush toilet or toilet without a flush) is a toilet which, unlike a flush toilet, does not use flush water. Dry toilets do not use water to move excreta along or block odors. They do not produce sewage, and a ...
involve "manual scavenging" to empty them, but only those that require unsafe handling of raw excreta. If on the other hand the excreta is already treated or pre-treated in the dry toilet itself, as is the case for composting toilets, and
urine-diverting dry toilets A urine-diverting dry toilet (UDDT) is a type of dry toilet with urine diversion that can be used to provide safe, affordable sanitation in a variety of contexts worldwide. The separate collection of feces and urine without any flush water has ma ...
for example, then emptying these types of toilets is not classified as "manual scavenging".
Container-based sanitation Container-based sanitation (abbreviated as CBS) refers to a sanitation system where toilets collect human excreta in sealable, removable containers (also called cartridges) that are transported to treatment facilities. This type of sanitation i ...
is another system that does not require manual scavenging to function even though it does involve the emptying of excreta from containers. Also, emptying the pits of twin-pit (see
pit latrine A pit latrine, also known as pit toilet, is a type of toilet that collects human feces in a hole in the ground. Urine and feces enter the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for use ...
for details) toilets is not classified as manual scavenging in India, as if used and emptied appropriately, the excreta is already treated. The
International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and o ...
describes three forms of manual scavenging in India: *Removal of human excrement from public streets and "dry latrines" (meaning simple
pit latrine A pit latrine, also known as pit toilet, is a type of toilet that collects human feces in a hole in the ground. Urine and feces enter the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for use ...
s without a water seal, but not
dry toilet A dry toilet (or non-flush toilet, no flush toilet or toilet without a flush) is a toilet which, unlike a flush toilet, does not use flush water. Dry toilets do not use water to move excreta along or block odors. They do not produce sewage, and a ...
s in general) * Cleaning
septic tank A septic tank is an underground chamber made of concrete, fiberglass, or plastic through which domestic wastewater ( sewage) flows for basic sewage treatment. Settling and anaerobic digestion processes reduce solids and organics, but the treatm ...
s * Cleaning gutters and sewers Manual cleaning of railway lines of excreta dropped from toilets of trains is another form of manual scavenging in India."Manual Scavengers: Indian Railways in denial".
''OneWorld South Asia''. 25 February 2013.
The
Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
phrase ''safai karamchari'' defines not only "manual scavengers" but also other sanitation workers.


History

The practice of manual scavenging in India dates back to ancient times. According to the contents of sacred scriptures and other literature, scavenging by some specific castes of India has existed since the beginning of civilization. One of the fifteen duties of slaves enumerated in '' Naradiya Samhita'' was of manual scavenging. This continues during the
Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
and
Maurya period The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until 1 ...
also. Scholars have suggested that the Mughal women with
purdah Pardah or purdah (from Hindi-Urdu , , meaning "curtain") is a religious and social practice of female seclusion prevalent among some Muslim and Hindu communities. It takes two forms: physical segregation of the sexes and the requirement that wom ...
required enclosed toilets that needed to be scavenged. It is pointed out that the Bhangis (
Chuhra Chuhra is a Dalit caste in India and Pakistan. Populated regions include the Punjab region of India and Pakistan, as well as Uttar Pradesh in India, among other parts of the Indian subcontinent such as southern India. Their traditional occupatio ...
) share some of the clan names with
Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...
s, and propose that the Bhangis are descendants of those captured in wars. There are many legends about the origin of Bhangis, who have traditionally served as manual scavengers. One of them, associated with Lal Begi Bhangis, describes the origin of Bhangis from Mehtar. Manual scavenging is historically linked to the caste system in India. Not only cleaning of toilets, but all types of cleaning jobs are considered lowly in India. The elites assigned the most lowly and polluting jobs for members of the
Dalit Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...
community. The caste-based assignment of cleaning jobs can be traced back to the rise of Hinduism and revival of the Brahmanical order during the
Gupta period The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gold ...
, considered the golden era in the history of the Indian sub-continent. The workers usually belonged to the Balmiki (or Valmiki) or
Hela HeLa (; also Hela or hela) is an immortalized cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. The line is derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951, named after Henrietta ...
(or Mehtar) subcastes; considered at the bottom of the hierarchy within the Dalit community itself. Before the passage of the 1993 Act that prohibit employment for manual scavengers, local governments employed 'scavengers' to clean dry latrines in private houses and community or public facilities. These jobs were institutionalised by the British. In London, cesspits containing human waste were called 'gongs' or 'jakes' and men employed to clean them 'Gongfermours' or 'Gongfarmers'. They emptied such pits only in the night and dumped it outside the city. They had designated areas to live and were allowed to use only certain roads and by lanes to carry the waste. The British organized systems for removing the excreta and employed Bhangis as manual scavengers. They also brought Dalits working as agricultural labourers in the rural areas for the job in urban areas. This formal employment of Bhangis and Chamars for waste management by the British reinforced the caste based assignment. Even today, sanitation department jobs are almost unofficially 100% reserved for people from the Scheduled caste groups.


Current prevalence

Despite the passage of two pieces of legislation, the prevalence of manual scavenging is an open secret. According to the Socio Economic Caste Census 2011, 180,657 households within India are engaged in manual scavenging for a livelihood. The
2011 Census of India The 2011 Census of India or the 15th Indian Census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information ...
found 794,000 cases of manual scavenging across India. The state of Maharashtra, with 63,713, tops the list with the largest number of households working as manual scavengers, followed by the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura and Karnataka. Manual scavenging still survives in parts of India without proper sewage systems or safe fecal sludge management practices. It is thought to be prevalent in Maharashtra,
Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
,
Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...
,
Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
, and
Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern s ...
. In March 2014, the Supreme Court of India declared that there were 96 lakh (9.6 million) dry latrines being manually emptied but the exact number of manual scavengers is disputed – official figures put it at less than 700,000. An estimate in 2018 put the number of "sanitation workers" in India at 5 million, and 50% of them being women. However, not all sanitation workers are manual scavengers. Another estimate from 2018 put the figure at one million manual scavengers, stating that the number is "unknown and declining" and that 90% of them are women. The biggest violator of this law in India is the
Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tota ...
where many train carriages have toilets dropping the excreta from trains on the tracks and who employ scavengers to clean the tracks manually. The situation is being improved in 2018 by the addition of on-train treatment systems for the toilet waste. Bezwada Wilson, an activist, at the forefront in the battle to eradicate manual scavenging, argues that the practice continues due to its casteist nature. He also argues that the failure of implementation of the 1993 Act is a collective failure of the leadership, judiciary, the administration, and the Dalit movements to address the concerns of the most marginalized community. Unlike infrastructure projects like metros, the issue receives little or no priority from the Government and hence the deadline to comply with the 1993 Act has been continuously postponed. An example that demonstrates the apathy of the government is the fact that none of the Rupees 100 Crore (1,000 million) allocated in the budgets for financial years 2011-12 and 2012-13 was spent. Such is the stigma attached to manual scavengers that even professionals who work for their emancipation get labelled (for example, Bhasha Singh was labelled 'manual scavenging journalist').


Threats and harassment

In India, women who practice manual scavenging face pressure from their respective communities if they miss a day since toilets are cleaned every day. Many women have no choice but to turn up to clean the toilets. The practical requirement that they do not miss a day prevents them from pursuing alternate occupations like agricultural labor. And in the event that they are able to find the means and support to stop manual scavenging, women still face extreme pressure from the community.


Initiatives for eradication


Legislation

In the late 1950s, freedom fighter G. S. Lakshman Iyer banned manual scavenging when he was the chairman of Gobichettipalayam Municipality, which became the first local body to ban it officially. Sanitation is a State subject as per entry 6 of the Constitution. Under this, in February 2013 Delhi announced that they were banning manual scavenging, making them the first state in India to do so. District magistrates are responsible for ensuring that there are no manual scavengers working in their district. Within three years of the ruling municipalities, railways and cantonments were required to make sufficient sanitary latrines available. But by using Article 252 of the constitution which empowers Parliament to legislate for two or more States by consent and adoption of such legislation by any other State, the Government of India has enacted various laws. The continuance of such discriminatory practice is violation of ILO's Convention 111 (Discrimination in Employment and Occupation). The
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
human rights chief welcomed in 2013 the movement in India to eradicate manual scavenging. In 2007 the Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers was passed to help in transition to other occupations.


The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993

After six states passed resolutions requesting the Central Government to frame a law, "The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993", drafted by the Ministry of Urban Development under the Narasimha Rao government, was passed by Parliament in 1993. The act punishes the employment of scavengers or the construction of dry (non-flush) latrines with imprisonment for up to one year and/or a fine of Rs 2,000.The Employment Of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993
Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation was a ministry of the Government of India responsible for urban poverty, housing, and employment programs. It involved in national policy decisions and coordinates with Indian central minist ...
, Govt. of India.
No convictions were obtained under the law during the 20 years it was in force.


The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013 or M.S. Act 2013

Government has passed the new legislation in September 2013 and issued Government notification for the same. In December, 2013 Government also formulated Rules-2013 called as "The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Rules 2013" or "M.S. Rules 2013". The hearing on 27 March 2014 was held on manual scavenging of writ petition number 583 of 2003, and Supreme Court has issued final orders and case is disposed of with various directions to the Government. The broad objectives of the act are to eliminate unsanitary latrines, prohibit the employment of manual scavengers and the hazardous manual cleaning of sewer and septic tanks, and to maintain a survey of manual scavengers and their rehabilitation.


Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill, 2020

The Bill calls for a complete mechanization of cleaning sewers and septic tanks.


Activism

In India in 1970s,
Bindeshwar Pathak Bindeshwar Pathak is an Indian sociologist and social entrepreneur. He is the founder of Sulabh International, an India-based social service organisation which works to promote human rights, environmental sanitation, non-conventional sources ...
introduced his " Sulabh" concept for building and managing public toilets in India, which has introduced hygienic and well-managed public toilet systems. Activist Bezwada Wilson founded a group in 1994, Safai Karmachari Andolan, to campaign for the demolition of then newly illegal 'dry latrines' (
pit latrines A pit latrine, also known as pit toilet, is a type of toilet that collects human feces in a hole in the ground. Urine and feces enter the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for user ...
) and the abolition of manual scavenging. Despite the efforts of Wilson and other activists, the practice persists two decades later. In July 2008 "Mission Sanitation" was a fashion show held by the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
as part of its
International Year of Sanitation The year 2008 was declared the International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations in conjunction with the Water for Life Decade. The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation. Worldwide there are ...
. On the runway were 36 previous workers, called scavengers, and top models to help bring awareness of the issue of manual scavenging. The Movement for Scavenger Community (MSC) is an NGO founded in 2009 by Vimal Kumar with young people, social activists, and like-minded people from the scavenger community. MSC is committed to working towards the social and economic empowerment of the scavenger community through the medium of education. The "Campaign for Dignity" (Garima Abhiyan) in
Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...
in India has assisted more than 20,000 women to stop doing manual scavenging as an occupation. Pragya Akhilesh is called the ‘toilet woman of Delhi’. She is a trade unionist and activist and theatre director. Since 2010 she has highlighted the government’s failure to recognise the labour movement of sanitation workers and the failure to eradicate and rehabilitate manual scavengers in India.


Other countries

Manual emptying of toilets also took place in Europe. Historically the excreta was known as
night soil Night soil is a historically used euphemism for human excreta collected from cesspools, privies, pail closets, pit latrines, privy middens, septic tanks, etc. This material was removed from the immediate area, usually at night, by workers em ...
and in Tudor England the workers were called
gong farmer Gong farmer (also gongfermor, gongfermour, gong-fayer, gong-fower or gong scourer) was a term that entered use in Tudor England to describe someone who dug out and removed human excrement from privies and cesspits. The word "gong" was used for b ...
s. In Pakistan municipalities still rely on Christian sweepers. In the city of Karachi, sweepers keep the sewer system flowing, using their bare hands to unclog crumbling drainpipes of feces, plastic bags and hazardous hospital refuse, part of the 1,750 million litres of waste the city's 20 million residents produce daily. Christians make up a small percentage of Pakistan's population, and they fill majority of the sweeper jobs. When Karachi's municipality tried to recruit Muslims to unclog gutters, they refused to get down into the sewers, instead sweeping the streets. The job was left to Christians and lower-caste Hindus. Waste storage practices in homes in Sierra Leone are poor, adding to the not so good collection difficulties. Unsorted waste is often stored in old leaky buckets, and used plastic bags instead of a bin lined with plastic bags. Like most African countries, waste collection is a problem. Garbage collected by collection workers who are not provided with safety gears like gloves from communal skips is moved straight for the city’s two disposal sites. Scavengers try to earn a living from scouring through rotting rubbish, plastic bags and raw sewage for discarded things they can sell.


See also

*
Sanitation worker A sanitation worker (or sanitary worker) is a person responsible for cleaning, maintaining, operating, or emptying the equipment or technology at any step of the sanitation chain.World Bank, ILO, WaterAid, and WHO (2019)Health, Safety and Dignity ...
* Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) *
Waste collector A waste collector, also known as a garbageman, garbage collector, trashman (in the US), binman or (rarely) dustman (in the UK), is a person employed by a public or private enterprise to collect and dispose of municipal solid waste (refuse) and ...
* Water supply and sanitation in India


References

{{Use dmy dates, date=January 2020 Sewerage Toilets Cleaning and maintenance occupations