People left terrified after discovering what toilets look like on oil rigs
Living and working on an oil rig is hard, dangerous work that keeps you away from home for weeks - and sometimes months - at a time, but it's the toilet situation that has people reeling in terror.
Social media users are aghast after videos of toilets that appear to be installed directly above the ocean were shared online, purporting to show how some bathrooms work on offshore oil rigs.
In one video shared to TikTok, a toilet bowl and seat is apparently installed on a grid floor, and the surface of the ocean can be seen straight through it.
The camera zooms in closer to the water through the toilet bowl where large fish can be seen swimming directly below.
Another video, shared on YouTube, shows urinals attached to metal rails on the side of a rig using zip ties, with pipes running straight down into the water below.
The YouTube video also shared more clips of toilets that require the user to do their business directly into the sea, with one clip showing simply a triangular-shaped hole in a metal grid floor.
Narration over the video explained that these types of toilets were commonly found on 'older offshore oil rigs built around the 1970s or 1980s.
'Bathrooms were designed for waste to go straight into the sea,' the video explained. 'The idea was that the vast ocean ecosystem, including fish, would naturally process it.'
However, such toilets are no longer the norm due to environmental concerns. Raw sewage can carry harmful bacteria, viruses and chemicals, which can in turn impact marine life and ecosystems.
The idea of doing your business directly into the ocean from several metres high clearly made some people feel a little shaky.
Commenting on Instagram, one person wrote: 'Damn I bet [it's[ scary as hell dumping at night.'
Imagining the worst, a second person said: 'What if the welding just snapped while you were sitting on it at night?'
Or another nightmare scenario would be needing to go to the toilet 'during a bad storm', a third pictured.
A common dilemma in regular toilets is people dropping their phone in the bowl by accident. However, a number of commenters pointed out there would be no recovering a phone dropped into this particular toilet.
After seeing the fish swimming in the ocean directly under the toilet, some people made a note not to go fishing around an oil rig.
'Makes you want to avoid seafood,' a viewer wrote, adding nauseous emojis to their comment.
Viewers imagined how frightening it would be to need to use a toilet like these during bad weather or at night - while some were concerned about the fish swimming directly under it
On TikTok, one person asked: 'Where is this? I wanna make sure I don't eat wild-caught fish from that area.'
There was only bad news, though, as the reply came: 'The fish from this part of the sea get shipped all over the world so chances are you've probably already eaten one!'
While the bathroom situations on oil rigs vary significantly, many have proper flushing toilets and sinks to ensure good hygiene among the crew.
A TikTok content creator Mosey, who goes by the handle @rmoseyr, previously shared insights into what life is like on offshore rigs.
In one of his videos, he showed fans a proper bathroom on the platform, complete with a toilet seat and lid, flush, and a sink.
However, he claimed that the waste goes straight into the ocean. 'Straight out of here, into the drink,' Mosey wrote in his caption.
But others commented that all sewage gets 'treated before being pumped overboard'. Offshore oil rigs require specialised sewage treatment facilities to meet regulatory requirements and protect the marine environment.
Over on Reddit, people who have worked on offshore oil rigs discussed how different they can be depending on where in the world they are and the regulations they have to abide by.
One person who said they had worked on rigs in Saudi Arabia wrote: 'Offshore it's just one giant shared bathroom with a row of showers and toilets. No toilet paper, sometimes no toilet seats, just the pit-style toilets.'
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