Up to the 1880s, night-soil removal was handled by Chinese syndicates. They used buckets to collect human waste and transferred it to market gardens and plantations on the city’s outskirts. The Municipality tried to introduce a town sewage collection, but little progress was made until the 1920s. This was due to financial and technical challenges, as well as general resistance from the Asian population, who did not like colonial interference in their way of life.
