Living with a stink? Technology might help

Key points

• Milpitas, California, residents endure bad smells from a 342-acre landfill and industrial sites.
• Local authorities ordered the landfill to use drones and monitors to track odour chemicals.
• Des Moines, Iowa, spends about $240,000 a year on odour-monitoring technology.

Residents of Milpitas, an affluent city in California's Silicon Valley, have long complained about bad smells from industrial sites, including a 342-acre landfill. Chia-Ling Kong, an engineer who lives about half a mile from the dump, said she could not open her window for over 10 years when she first moved there. She said neighbours still face around two or three hours of bad smells a day.

Local authorities have ordered the operators of the Newby Island landfill to use drones and install monitors to track and measure the chemicals causing the odours. They must also automate the collection of landfill gases. Kong is optimistic that continuous monitoring will make it easier to pinpoint problems as they start. The operators say they are committed to operating safely and protecting air quality.

Global problem and regulations

Communities worldwide are complaining about odours from rubbish dumps, sewage works and factories. Many countries have no rules on managing smells. In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate environmental odours as a pollutant, leaving states and local governments in charge. Urban sprawl is often part of the problem, bringing homes closer to smelly facilities.

Now we can say with reasonable certainty that 'this odour event did originate from your facility, what was going on'?

— Dalton Jacobus

Technology and its limits

Odour-control technologies absorb smells, convert them chemically or burn them away. Experts say the best can remove 90% or more of the target compounds, but this is expensive. Some operators use cheaper methods like spraying deodorisers, which experts doubt are effective. Landfill smells are especially hard to treat because of the large surface area.

In Des Moines, Iowa, authorities spend around $240,000 a year on monitors to track the 'Eastside Funk'. The monitors, with a weather station, provide real-time data on emissions from each facility. Dalton Jacobus of the Department of Neighborhood Services said this ended finger-pointing. Smithfield Foods, which operates a meat processing plant there, says it invested $2m in an odour-control system but denies being a source of complaints.