With renovations of the last batches of households completed ahead of schedule in September 2025, Shanghai, a city of 25 million people, ended the era of hand-carried toilets. The milestone was part of a decades-long urban renewal project that began in the 1990s and is still underway. One key focus has been upgrading toilet facilities in older residential buildings. As many older buildings in Shanghai were not designed with private bathrooms, residents used wooden chamber pots and had to empty them regularly.