In Uttarakhand, sanitation workers start their day before dawn.
From Lalkuan to Dehradun, these workers, often unnoticed, are the backbone of urban life.
Their dedication, from waste collection to sewage management, highlights the essential yet underappreciated role they play in keeping cities clean and functional.
During the early hours in Uttarakhand — too late to be called night and a little too early to be called morning — when the streets are still and the hills steam slowly, the pulse of the city is already awake. Before most alarms begin to ring, the people who keep our cities clean have already started their day.
I recently travelled across Lalkuan, Rudrapur, Mussoorie and Dehradun with a video crew and sector professionals to document Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) interventions. The task seemed straightforward on paper: Collect footage, record interviews, and verify technical processes. But the journey turned out to be unexpectedly revealing. To follow sanitation workers is to see a city through its most honest lens.
What became clear was this: a city survives not merely because its infrastructure is complex, but because its workers are steadfast.
In Lalkuan, the Gulmohar SHG men begin their rounds with the easy rhythm of people deeply in sync with their routine. Their waste-collection vehicle sputters to life, and the Swachhta jingle rises — not loud or triumphant, but familiar, like an old tune embedded in the collective memory.
Door after door opens. A grandmother steps out, irritated that her grandson has once again mixed dry and wet waste. A little girl, still rubbing sleep from her eyes, drags a bin almost as big as herself. The collectors know each household through years of repeated interactions. They are not outsiders servicing a system; they are insiders sustaining a relationship.
Their efficiency does not come from a manual. It is shaped by trust, behaviour change, familiarity and exchanges built over time. With each interaction, the city feels less like an automated system and more like a living organism.
If the Gulmohar men are the arms of Lalkuan’s sanitation machinery, then Pooja didi is its backbone. She moves from door to door with a receipt book tucked under her arm, each page recording the terms of community cooperation.
Her job appears simple: collecting user charges. But it is far more layered. She listens, persuades, and remembers. She gently reminds families of last month’s dues, reassures hesitant residents about why the system matters, and negotiates not through authority, but familiarity.
In her stride, I saw an untapped strength within Indian sanitation systems — women taking pride in work they have consciously chosen. No municipal tender can replicate the trust she commands. No digital platform can replace her patient explanations. Watching her work, advocacy becomes personal.
In Mussoorie, mist hangs low while stray monkeys patrol balconies with the entitlement of local strongmen. Roads bend into tight question marks. On one such slope, I watched Manoj carry his waste-collection bag uphill.
Gravity behaves differently here. Waste collection in Mussoorie is not simply labour; it is an endurance test. Manoj climbs steadily as residents look on, struck by how something so demanding can appear both ordinary and exemplary.
At the hillside Material Recovery Facility (MRF), a team sorts waste with the concentration of surgeons and the casual camaraderie of back-benchers. Dry waste is bundled neatly. Recyclables are graded, weighed, and sent onward to Dehradun. Their work keeps thousands of tonnes out of landfills.
That was my moment of clarity: Circular economy may be articulated in conference halls, but it begins on sorting floors. These workers may not speak the language of climate action, yet every movement of their hands advances it. They may not call themselves environmental stewards, but they are its first line of defence.
Rudrapur greets us with a bustle. Here, I meet a desludging operator and his helper, who prepare each morning for work acknowledged only in moments of necessity. They head towards the day’s first septic tank, navigating narrow lanes thick with early-morning noise.
Desludging is work society relies on but prefers not to see. Still, the workers carry themselves with a quiet dignity. They follow safety protocols closely, handling suction pipes with care to prevent spillage.
Once the tank is emptied, life in the household resumes as normal. The operator, however, rarely receives recognition. It is here that the truth lands hard: those who handle what society discards receive the least acknowledgement.
At the Faecal Sludge Treatment Plant, the largest standalone facility of its kind in the Himalayan region, a team receives incoming tankers with the precision of laboratory technicians. They log data, monitor settling tanks, track microbial activity, and ensure safe treatment. Their work quietly prevents public health failures.
They deserve safety, insurance, skill recognition, career pathways, and visibility. Above all, they deserve respect, not mere tolerance.
Dehradun, the state’s urban giant, reveals another layer. Under fading dusk light, a new sewer line is being laid. Engineers check gradients. Workers lower pipes carefully, as if fitting bones into a growing body. This underground network carries what no one wishes to see — wastewater from millions of households. Tracing these pipes is like following the city’s digestive system.
Much of this sewage flows into the 68 MLD sewage treatment plant at Kargi Chowk, among other sites, where just fourteen workers manage an enormous daily inflow. Inside, the control room hums. Aeration tanks bubble like giant concrete cauldrons. Sensors blink. Pumps thrum. The system moves like clockwork, with no wasted motion.
Here, sanitation reveals its scientific face — precision, measurement, engineering; but it is the workers who animate it.
Sanitation workers are routinely described as “frontline workers”. Yet are they treated as such in policy, budgets, or public imagination? Their labour is visible in every clean street and working drain, but their place within urban systems remains marginal.
If we are serious about resilient and sustainable cities, difficult questions follow. Are safety and insurance aligned with real working conditions? Are jobs formal, stable and dignified? Are workers trained for evolving technologies? Is their labour recognised as skilled and essential? And do we ever hear their stories, or only notice the results of their work?
On the final day of filming, at an STP in Mussoorie, I watched a father–son duo, whose company operates multiple plants across Uttarakhand, carry out routine checks. Below us, wastewater moved through carefully designed stages. Around us, the hills stood watchful and still. One professional passed on knowledge; the other absorbed it. Together, they kept the city running in ways most citizens never realise.
In that moment, the truth felt simple: Cities do not function because they are planned. They function because someone wakes up every day and does the work to keep them running.
They are the people who keep our cities alive. And their story deserves to be celebrated.
Acknowledgement: The author thanks the Municipal Corporation of Rudrapur, Nagar Palika Mussoorie, and Nagar Panchayat Lalkuan for facilitating field discussions that informed this piece. Furthermore, the author is grateful to Mahreen Matto (NIUA), Suvajit Dey (NIUA), Mansi Rathore (Dasra), Surbhi Maloo (Dasra), and the photography crew from the Whistlers for their support.
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.