In past years when I spent camped out in the "bush", we only had the
old kerosine refrigerator to keep our meat and milk in.
 
These sometimes ran out of kerosine or the flame was blown out and of course
the food went "off" as the refrigerator was no longer working.  The smell of
rotting meat or old milk in the refrigerator was a very bad odour.
 
To remove the odour, we used to put charcoal from our fire place in a billy
(tin) in the refrigerator overnight.  By morning the odour would be gone,
soaked up by the charcoal (so we were told).
 
It worked for us so maybe you can try it in your pails to remove the odours
from the pails.  I would be interested to know if it works as it used to work
for us in the old kerosine refrigerators.
 
 
 
Trevor Weatherhead
AUSTRALIA