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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. This is the definition used in the narrower sense within the WASH sector. More broadly speaking, sanitation workers may also be involved in cleaning streets, parks, public spaces, sewers, stormwater drains, and public toilets. Another definition is: "The moment an individual’s waste is outsourced to another, it becomes sanitation work."
Those workers who maintain and empty on-site sanitation systems (e.g. pit latrines, septic tanks) contribute to functional fecal sludge management systems.
It is important to safeguard the dignity and health of sanitation workers. Without sanitation workers, the Sustainable Development Goal 6, Target 6.2 ("safely managed sanitation for all") cannot be achieved.
Some organisations use the term specifically for municipal solid waste collectors, whereas others exclude the workers involved in management of solid waste (rubbish, trash) sector from its definition.
Specific Careers in Sanitation
- Janitor or Custodian
- Restroom attendant (public toilets)
- Sweeping
- Latrine or pit latrine cleaning
- Domestic work (domestic worker)
- Community/public toilet keeping
- School toilet cleaning
- Municipalities, government, and private offices cleaning (commercial cleaning)
- Vacuum truck operator
- Desludging operator
- Fecal sludge management worker
- Manual emptier
- Mechanical emptier (including septic tank desludging)
- Manual transport
- Mechanical transport
- Public Housekeeping (Hospitals, etc.)
- Sewer cleaning
- Sewer and pumping station maintenance
- Manhole cleaning
- Wastewater treatment plant operator
- Sewage treatment plant cleaning
- Wastewater and sludge handling at sewage treatment plants
- Manual disposal
- Mechanical disposal