diff --git a/.github/workflows/pilotWrapper.yml b/.github/workflows/pilotWrapper.yml
index 3c7bc9fe9de..3010db7c0b6 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/pilotWrapper.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/pilotWrapper.yml
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ jobs:
         conda create -c conda-forge -c free -n python_${{ matrix.python }} python=${{ matrix.python }}
     - name: run pilot wrapper test
       run: |
+        export INVALID_UTF8_VAR=$'\xff'
         cp tests/Integration/WorkloadManagementSystem/Test_GenerateAndExecutePilotWrapper.py .
         eval "$(conda shell.bash hook)" && conda activate python_${{ matrix.python }}
         # use github APIs to get the artifacts URLS from https://github.com/DIRACGrid/Pilot/, for those named Pilot_${{ matrix.pilot_branch }}
diff --git a/src/DIRAC/WorkloadManagementSystem/Utilities/PilotWrapper.py b/src/DIRAC/WorkloadManagementSystem/Utilities/PilotWrapper.py
index 732d7360de3..cc2d14e45e8 100644
--- a/src/DIRAC/WorkloadManagementSystem/Utilities/PilotWrapper.py
+++ b/src/DIRAC/WorkloadManagementSystem/Utilities/PilotWrapper.py
@@ -110,7 +110,15 @@ def formatTime(self, record, datefmt=None):
 # just logging the environment as first thing
 logger.debug('===========================================================')
 logger.debug('Environment of execution host\\n')
-for key, val in os.environ.items():
+for key, val in getattr(os, "environb", os.environ).items():
+  # Clean the environment of non-utf-8 characters
+  try:
+    key = key.decode("utf-8")
+    val = val.decode("utf-8")
+  except UnicodeDecodeError as e:
+    logger.error("Dropping %%s=%%s due to: %%s", key, val, e)
+    del os.environ[key]
+    continue
   logger.debug(key + '=' + val)
 logger.debug('===========================================================\\n')