According to the 2022 population and housing census, 2.1% of the 17.8 million households in South Africa use buckets for ablutions.

The count includes buckets collected and emptied by municipalities, and those emptied by households.

The last census was published in 2011, when South Africa had 14.4 million households and before that, the census 2001 found that 4.1% of 11.2 million households relied on bucket toilets.

While eradicating this indignity was a key goal of the democratic government, the bucket toilet calculation includes bucket toilets collected by municipalities and those emptied by the household.

The Northern Cape has the highest number of households using buckets as their primary toilet facility, with 4.5% of the province's households using this type of toilet. 

The Free State comes in second with 3.5% of its households, followed by the Western Cape with 3.1%.

The Western Cape has the highest percentage of flushing toilets, with 93.9% of the households in the province using flushing toilets as their primary type of facility.

Limpopo has the lowest number of flushing toilets, with 35.2% of its households using this as their primary facility, this province's main type of facility is the pit latrine without ventilation pipes.

According to the data, there has been an increase in the percentage of households that use a flush toilet as in 2022, 70.8% of households had flushing toilets, up from 60.1% in 2011 and 51.9% in 2001.