Dubai New Year’s Eve “heroes” work overnight to clean up Burj Khalifa, other celebration sites

Dubai: As 48 fireworks lit up the sky at 40 locations across Dubai on New Year's Eve, another spectacle unfolded on the ground, one that most revellers would only witness the results of when they woke up the next morning.

Around 3,000 Dubai Municipality employees, alongside workers from private firms, launched a massive overnight cleaning operation to restore the city's pristine appearance within hours of the midnight celebrations.

Massive operation

While the spectacular fireworks and drone shows at major landmarks including Burj Khalifa and Dubai Frame concluded shortly after midnight, several celebration venues including Global Village remained open for extended hours. The municipality had also kept 14 public parks operating beyond their usual closing times, and public beaches designated for families required attention as well.

Cleaners worked systematically across all these sites, deploying multiple vehicles and sophisticated cleaning equipment to tackle the post-celebration debris. Sites under private developments also mobilised their own cleaning teams as part of the coordinated effort.

Municipality celebrates heroes

Dubai Municipality took to Instagram to showcase the "Cleaning Engineers" – an honourary title bestowed upon the civic body's cleaning staff – who ensured the streets gleamed when residents emerged from their homes on the New Year Day.

Officers posed alongside these workers for group photographs, while the municipality also shared collages of its employees in action at various New Year's Eve sites throughout the night.

Residents praise the effort

Many Dubai residents who witnessed the cleaners at work before and after the celebrations expressed their appreciation on social media platforms.

Tasneem and Taher Sayanvala, a South African couple who run the Travel Buzz UAE Instagram channel, captured a video of the extensive cleanup operations around Burj Khalifa as they made their way home after the fireworks display. The footage showed groups of cleaners using various equipment and vehicles for the massive undertaking. They titled their video "The Heroes of Dubai."

'Right place, right time'

Speaking to Gulf News, the couple described what they witnessed: "We were walking to the metro bus station and decided to see the street instead of taking the metro walk through the mall. As we looked around, it just caught my eye that cleaners had started working," said Taher

"It was so soon after the celebrations. We were probably at the right place at the right time. Within a few minutes, everything started happening so quickly…The cleaners were there, the machines came in," Tasneem said.

The couple emphasised the importance of recognising such efforts. "These are things people don't see. We take for granted that whatever we see happening in Dubai is because of the hard work of these people behind the scenes," Tasneem noted.

"While we're celebrating, they're also there, but their job is different. They're cleaning after us, which is something we really need to be appreciative of," Taher said, adding that they had witnessed similar dedication during other major events like the Dubai Run.