Strategies for Odour Control

Abstract

Odour pollution is often linked to industrial activities such as waste treatment (wastewater treatment plants, compost facilities, landfills), intensive animal farming, food processing, pulp and paper production, and so on. Today, the stricter environmental regulations imposed worldwide, together with the encroachment of residential areas on industrial facilities in the last decades, have resulted in an increase in the number of public odour complaints. In fact, more than half the complaints received by the environmental regulatory agencies worldwide concern malodours. For instance, odour annoyance affects approximately 20% of the population in Europe, with malodours fromwastewater treatment plants (WWTP) being ranked amongst the most unpleasant ones. Despite not being a direct cause of disease, long-term exposure to high-strength malodorous emissions actually does negatively affect human health, causing nausea, headaches, insomnia, loss of appetite, respiratory problems, irrational behaviour, and so on. In addition, malodorous emissions can pose a severe occupational risk within confined spaces in WWTPs or pulp and paper industries, due to the accumulation of lethal H2S concentrations.