The Poo Crew Adventures

(A festival I am working at uses composting toilets. Commodes have been set up, with wheely bins below them to collect the waste. The crew that is running it, colloquially known as the “Poo Crew,” have set up this business and go from site to site, managing the waste. As we are packing down the festival, I get to chatting with one of the owners. He is telling me about a festival he had done outside of Sydney, with thousands of people over several days. People camping out there, or just visiting for the day. As you can imagine, there was a lot of work for the Poo Crew. One woman approached the Poo Crew manager stating she had lost her purse down the privy. Whilst it’s not pleasant, the Poo Crew do get up to their armpit in the waste, but it’s not something that they like to do for free. The owner asked the woman which privy she had used.)

Woman: “Oh, I’m not sure. It was two nights ago. Can you just try a couple of them?”

Owner: “Well, we’re composting down this site over the next couple of months. If your purse turns up we’ll call you.”

(I would have been tempted to ask her to go through the bins herself!)