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Black Rubber Buckets For The Bucket Toilet
In the early days in Ipoh and the Kinta Valley everyone used the bucket toilet, as did almost all of Malaysia. Night soil collectors in an orange coloured truck used to come every other evening to collect the waste using black rubber buckets. Everyone always covered their noses whenever they came!
ipohgal remembers "Mom would even light up a cheroot to fight the lingering stench."
Only in the late 1870s was Ipoh converted to the flush system. And even then there was opposition to this new idea.
The pictures above show two different designs for these famous buckets, one (left) very much shorter than the other. Both were supplied by Kinta Rubber works.
To see a 1952 Kinta Rubber Works Advertisement, click here.