Job Openings: Professional Poo Diver

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If you break life down into a series of activities, objectively, a lot of them don’t make sense. Like diving into a vat of raw sewage. Why would someone do that? To find out, we're asking people doing weird things why, to get an insight into their world.

This is Brendan Walsh’s world. He runs a Melbourne company called East West Dive and Salvage, which basically involves diving in all sorts of no-air environments. One such environment includes sewage, so I caught up with Brendan to find out what necessitates this foul job and why he does it.

VICE: Hi, Brendan. Why are you doing this?
Brendan Walsh: I’m doing it because in Australia, we don’t process our sewerage with chemicals. We get bacteria to break down the solids by aerating them with big stirring machines, 24 hours a day. It’s a very aggressive environment, and moving parts constantly break.

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So what have you learned about poo?
It’s brown-gold—no one wants to touch it, so the dollars are better. And all sorts of stuff ends up in there. Lots of condoms, lots of old men’s underwear. I think they flush them in nursing homes after accidents. And people don’t chew their corn.

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