Odour pollution accounts for over 60 per cent of complaints from the community, according to Local and State Government environmental protection agencies.
A smell invading your living or working space can be distracting, unpleasant and even sickening.
Antipollution laws now include smell as a form of pollution and prosecution can lead to hefty fines for those responsible for the release of odour.
The most common sites that release odour are landfill, sewage treatment plants, abattoirs, food factories, and chemical storage and distribution centres.
Complaints lead to investigation by local authorities and the emitter is usually instructed to ‘measure and manage’ the problem.
But this is where the trouble starts. How do you measure a smell?
A new sniffer technology has been developed in Australia that offers site managers a way of continuously measuring smells they may be releasing so that they can better manage their plants.
The Mk 4 E-Nose from
E-Nose Pty Ltd is about to roll out and join its successful siblings, the Mk 3 E-Nose and the graffit-e-nose™ in the battle against unwanted odour.
The Mk 4 E-Nose will combine several functions into a single device, providing a platform for a range of air quality monitoring tasks, including environment and security.
The device provides a continuous record of smells from a site and notifies operators when to take action (smell reaching a predetermined pollution threshold), when a particular smell of concern is detected (a leak or a smell of high sensitivity to complainants), and whether there is a need to dose odours or not, thereby saving money on dosing.
E-Noses can also save operators money by flagging when an abatement process, such as a biofilter, is delivering below par. Most importantly, E-Noses will save the emitter and the community the cost, time and frustration of arguments and litigation, by reducing the risk of it happening in the first place.
The new E-Nose has recently been used successfully at a sewage water mining plant at a Sydney northern suburbs golf course, and a large country landfill, where it audited gas leaks and the facility’s general contribution to air quality in the community.
A six month air monitoring study of an oil tank farm also provided crucial information to site owners for management of its activities, leading to a reduction of complaints by nearby residents.
E-Nose continuous real time smell monitors and the graffit-e-nose™ device are now available through distributors across Australia. They can be purchased outright or rented.
Monitoring services, with equipment and manpower supplied, can be provided to meet individual circumstances.
For further information
visit www.e-nose.info or
email Graham Bell on g.bell@e-nose.info
*Copy supplied by E-Nose
Pty Ltd
