Sanitation Kits
Individual pages in
this section
1-Water Barrels
2-Food Rations
3-Sanitation Kits
4-Medical Kits
5-Radiation Kits
and Instruments
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Fallout Shelter Sanitation Kits consisted of 22 inch
high by 16 inch diameter fiberboard drums. These drums contained the kit
contents and were to serve as the initial chemical toilet until the water
drums were emptied and became available to be used as toilets.
Here
is a Sanitation Kit IV drum. It's just a regular fiber storage drum with
a very official type label. All of these kits I have seen have been manufactured
by the Continental Can Co. New York. The Civil Defense Fallout Shelter
Manager Textbook lists SKIII and SKIV sanitation kits. The SKIII kit is
listed to supply 25 persons for 2 weeks and is shown below. The SKIV is
listed to supply 50 persons for 2 weeks and is shown in this picture.
The SKIV here is from my collection. "Supplies 50 Persons" can be clearly
seen on the label.
This
is the SKIII drum. I FINALLY got one. This kit has been the most hard
to find of all the shelter supplies in my 20+ years of collecting. Unfortunaltely
I didn't find this one in a shelter though. I got this kit from an Ebay.com
seller. This kit was manufactured by the Greif Bros. Cooperage Corp. 1962.
The kit is complete except for the hand cleaner. The "OK" on
the label was put on when the hand cleaner was removed. Most of the sanitation
kits I have found have had the hand cleaner removed. I have heard from
a few people who said that the hand cleaner had hexachlorophene in it
and that's why it was removed although the medical kit surgical soap had
the same stuff in it and it wasn't removed from the medical kits so who
knows. Removal of the hand cleaner also might have been due to leakage
of the cans ruining the contents of the kit.
Here
is the SKIII packed. There are 2 boxes with the various supplies and a
plastic toilet seat in the middle. The SKIV is packed similar to this
but the 10 toilet paper rolls are put in the bottom of the drum with the
boxes on top of the rolls. In the SKIII the 5 toilet paper rolls are in
one of the boxes and the boxes are a little longer than the SKIV. If this
doesn't sound like Civil Defense collector minutiae nothing does :-)
Here
is the inside of the boxes in the SKIII. The instruction sheet and plastic
liners are at the top of the picture. Toilet seat at the bottom of the
picture. See a more detailed picture and list of the contents below.
Sanitation Kit Information From DOD OCD 1964 Annual Statistical Report
These photos are from page 27 of the DOD OCD 1964 Annual Statistical Report.
See page 27 here 1964
Annual Statistical Report Page 27 It was interesting to find out
that the Sanitation Kits were all purchased from Workshops For The Blind.
I don't know how that worked. Maybe the manufacturers hired the Workshops
For The Blind to assemble the kits.
Here
is the SKIV outfitted for your full toileting comfort. The seat on the top
is packaged in the drum with the rest of the kit contents. Needless to say
with the fiber drum, if the plastic liner had even a pinhole sized leak
things would get nasty quickly. I guess that's why they intended to use
the metal water drums as toilets as soon as the water was used.
Here is a picture of a sample of the contents of the kit (less sanitary
napkins). The items in the picture (clockwise from upper left) are, plastic
cups and lids, vintage roll of Scott tissue, envelope of toilet chemical
packets, can of the dreaded waterless hand cleaner, can opener with wire
tie wrap, plastic toilet liner bag, package of plastic gloves, instruction
sheet and a siphon hose for the water drums.
Sanitation Kit Contents List
|
Kit Item
|
SKIII
|
SKIV
|
| Commode Seat, Plastic |
1
|
1
|
| Can Opener (manual) |
1
|
1
|
| Sanitary Napkins |
36
|
60
|
| Hand Cleaner (can) |
1
|
1
|
| Polyethelene Gloves (pair) |
1
|
1
|
| Water Dispensing Spout |
1
|
1
|
| Tie Wire (bag closing) |
1
|
1
|
| Cups and Lids (plastic) |
35
|
70
|
| Commode Chemical (pack) |
6
|
12
|
| Poly Bag Liners (commode) |
1
|
1
|
| Instruction Sheet |
1
|
1
|
| Toilet Tissue |
5
|
10
|
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