Every morning, somewhere in Pakistan, a sanitation worker ties his boots, picks up a rope and a bucket, and walks toward a manhole. He does not know if he will come back out the way he went in. He goes anyway, because his family needs the wage, and the city needs him more than it ever admits.
Can robots make Pakistan’s sewer workers safer?
By Mehwish Amin
ISLAMABAD, Aug 6 (APP)::Every morning, somewhere in Pakistan, a sanitation worker ties his boots, picks up a rope and a bucket, and walks toward a manhole. He does not know if he will come back out the way he went in. He goes anyway, because his family needs the wage, and the city needs him more than it ever admits.
Statistics record how many sanitation workers have died, but they cannot capture the fear of climbing into a manhole filled with toxic gases. In Islamabad’s I-9 and I-10 sectors, sanitation worker Adhar Haman talking to APP said, “Whenever we have to enter deep manholes, there is always a fear that today might be our last day.We have to do this work to provide for our children, but the fear never goes away.”
Recalling losing two colleagues during a sewer-cleaning operation, he said, “Once a worker disappears from sight underground, rescuing him is extremely difficult. The toxic gases are so concentrated that a person can die within seconds.
Similar incidents have been reported in Karachi, Faisalabad and other cities, highlighting the dangers faced by sanitation workers across Pakistan.
CDA’s Deputy Director Ali Murtaza, talking to this agency said Islamabad’s sanitation system still relies heavily on manual labour despite the introduction of some mechanised waste-collection equipment. He cited staff shortages, inadequate safety equipment and expanding sanitation services as major challenges.
“The biggest challenge is the lack of public awareness,” he said, noting that many people continue to litter despite the availability of dustbins.
While robotics and artificial intelligence could modernise waste management, he stressed that technology alone would not solve the problem.
“We keep our homes clean, but we often fail to keep our city clean.”
Officials responsible for sewer maintenance said workers are only sent into manholes after other methods, including rods, wires and jetting vehicles, fail. Even then, they often enter without adequate protective equipment.
“We only use safety ropes tied around the worker,” the official admitted, adding that the department does not have oxygen masks.
He said the immediate priority was functional vehicles and protective gear before introducing advanced technology.
The official also recalled a July 2023 tragic incident in which a boy climbed into a manhole to retrieve his cricket ball after its cover had been stolen. He collapsed after inhaling toxic gas. His father entered to save him and also lost his life.
“Two members of the same family died in a single incident,” he said, adding that requests for replacement manhole covers had been pending for six months.
“Every human life is valuable,” he said. “They do not receive the respect they deserve.”
Several countries have already adopted technology to reduce such risks. In the United Kingdom, Pipebots inspect pipelines and detect faults before they become major failures. Similar systems are in use across Europe, while Saudi Arabia has incorporated robots into public cleaning operations.
Pakistan has begun building its own robotics capacity. The National Centre of Robotics and Automation (NCRA) at NUST is developing indigenous technologies for healthcare, agriculture and disaster response, although sanitation has yet to become a major focus.
A CDA official talking to this scribe said the aim should be to reduce risk rather than replace workers. The transition could begin with smart dashboards, sensors on waste bins and cameras to identify waste hotspots, before introducing robots for the most hazardous sewer lines. Such measures, she said, would improve both efficiency and worker safety.
A survey of 26 respondents found that most believed Pakistan still needed better preparation before adopting robotics widely. However, 88.5 per cent agreed that robotic technology could reduce accidents involving sanitation workers.
Most respondents favoured using machines to protect workers rather than replace them. One participant summed up the view, “Provide safety equipment, proper training, fair salaries, and use modern robotic technology for dangerous cleaning tasks.”
The technology already exists—in the United Kingdom, across Europe, in Saudi Arabia and increasingly in Pakistan’s own research institutions. The real question is no longer whether robots can make sewer work safer. It is whether any worker should still have to risk a life doing a job that technology is already capable of making far safer.
