A review of odour impact criteria in selected countries around the world.

Exposure to environmental odour can result in annoyance, health effects and depreciation of property values. Therefore, many jurisdictions classify odour as an atmospheric pollutant and regulate emissions and/or impacts from odour generating activities at a national, state or municipal level. In this work, a critical review of odour regulations in selected jurisdictions of 28 countries is presented. Individual approaches were identified as: comparing ambient air odour concentration and individual chemicals statistics against impact criteria (maximum impact standard); using fixed and variable separation distances (separation distance standard); maximum emission rate for mixtures of odorants and individual chemical species (maximum emission standard); number of complaints received or annoyance level determined via community surveys (maximum annoyance standard); and requiring use of best available technologies (BAT) to minimize odour emissions (technology standard). The comparison of model-predicted odour concentration statistics against odour impact criteria (OIC) is identified as one of the most common tools used by regulators to evaluate the risk of odour impacts in planning stage assessments and is also used to inform assessment of odour impacts of existing facilities. Special emphasis is given to summarizing OIC (concentration percentile and threshold) and the manner in which they are applied. The way short term odour peak to model time-step mean (peak-to-mean) effects is also captured. Furthermore, the fundamentals of odorant properties, dimensions of nuisance odour, odour sampling and analysis methods and dispersion modelling guidance are provided. Common elements of mature and effective odour regulation frameworks are identified and an integrated multi-tool strategy is recommended.

[Efficacy of the analytic approach in evaluation of biofilter activity in a composting system]. / Efficacia dell'approccio analitico nella valutazione dell'attività del biofiltro di un impianto di compostaggio.

Composting may present certain technical problems which can negatively influence results in terms of environmental impact as well as of profit and loss account. The aim of this study was to estimate the efficacy of the analytic approach to evaluate the effect of removing the biofilter in a composting system. Results have shown the presence of foul-smelling emissions despite the fact that concentrations of investigated substances were well below the danger threshold or even below the method's detection threshold. Therefore, besides the analytic approach, the most reasonable choice seems to be introducing a reference method for evaluating odour emissions and the efficacy of composting systems.

Responses to odors in occupational environments.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: There is mounting evidence that the presence of airborne chemicals that produce odor and irritation can be a significant impediment to a productive and healthy workforce, even among individuals without chemical sensitivity. RECENT FINDINGS: Studies investigating odor and irritant-induced symptoms in occupational environments suggest that poor indoor air quality, coupled with psychosocial factors such as the work environment, personality and stress, can lead to the development of building-related complaints and exacerbate chemical intolerance and symptoms. The practice of introducing pleasant odors in the workplace to improve productivity and mood is not well supported by current research. SUMMARY: Managing the response to odors and irritants in the workplace is critical to maintaining the health and well being of workers. There is a critical need for regulatory organizations in the United States and elsewhere to harmonize guidelines for occupational exposure limits. In addition, management must engage in risk communication and education of workers in order to ensure that misperception of risk from odors does not lead to illness and loss of well being.

Dialogue procedures for the management of odour related community conflicts.

In the German Guideline on Odour in Ambient Air (GOAA) statements about the degree of residential odour annoyance are based on the frequency of recognisable odours and hedonic tone. The use of olfactory standards to adequately estimate the annoyance impact is limited if, for example, worry about adverse health outcomes significantly influences the annoyance response of the population. This report introduces dialogue procedures as complementary measures to consider the complainants' subjective perceptions and worries adequately. At first, it is illustrated that odour exposure and number of odour complaints are not necessarily correlated. Then the "interest analysis" and the five steps of a dialogue procedure are presented. A dialogue procedure can be initiated in "quiet times" - where the focus is on trust building and on the development of adequate communication strategies to promote realistic risk reception - as well as in order to establish a successful conflict resolution process if the issue is complex and emotionally discussed. After that, two examples of handling odour complaints are shown. Finally, considerations applying dialogue procedures as a tool to advance odour annoyance mitigation are outlined.

The development of industry-specific odor impact criteria for feedlots using models.

Emissions from feedlot operations are known to vary by environmental conditions and few if any techniques or models exist to predict the variability of odor emission rates from feedlots. The purpose of this paper is to outline and summarize unpublished reports that are the result of a collective effort to develop industry-specific odor impact criteria for Australian feedlots. This effort used over 250 olfactometry samples collected with a wind tunnel and past research to develop emission models for pads, sediment basins, holding ponds, and manure storage areas over a range of environmental conditions and tested using dynamic olfactometry. A process was developed to integrate these emission models into odor dispersion modeling for the development of impact criteria. The approach used a feedlot hydrology model to derive daily feedlot pad moisture, temperature, and thickness. A submodel converted these daily data to hourly data. A feedlot pad emissions model was developed that predicts feedlot pad emissions as a function of temperature, moisture content, and pad depth. Emissions from sediment basins and holding ponds were predicted using a basin emissions model as a function of days since rain, inflow volume, inflow ratio (pond volume), and temperature. This is the first attempt to model all odor source emissions from a feedlot as variable hourly emissions on the basis of climate, management, and site-specific conditions. Results from the holding pond, sediment basin, and manure storage emission models performed well, but additional work on the pad emissions model may be warranted. This methodology mimics the variable odor emissions and odor impact expected from feedlots due to climate and management effects. The main outcome of the work is the recognition that an industry-specific odor impact criterion must be expressed in terms of all of the components of the assessment methodology.

Odor control for livestock systems.

Odors are generated primarily as the result of manure storage but also result from animal housing and manure application. Effective odor control is dependent upon implementation of strategies that are complementary to management practices. Some systems use a deep pit or a holding tank for manure storage. In such systems, little or no biological processing occurs, and they are therefore considered high-load systems. In systems where biological processing occurs to a great extent, such as in anaerobic digesters or lagoons, the system would be termed a low-load system. Odor control strategies for manure storage areas, such as solids separation and additives, are best suited for low-load systems, whereas covers and biofilters provide the best results for high-load systems. Strategies that reduce nutrient production, such as dietary restriction of nutrients, are well-suited for all types of manure storage systems. To comply with current or pending odor control regulations, it is imperative that producers be provided with sound recommendations of odor control strategies.

Measurement and impact of agricultural odors from a large scale swine production farm.

With the move on a nationwide scale to greater centralization and specialization of swine production and consequent swine confinement, rural communities face the prospects of increasing odor impact from these sources. The enactment of regulations to prevent community odor nuisance requires the establishment of limits to reflect emissions which may be found to exceed such community standards. While urban industrial sources of odor such as rendering plants and coke ovens are required to meet source emission limits as a result of citizen complaint related litigation, agricultural sources are, in most states, exempt from such legal restrictions. However, should a burden of nuisance complaints come into evidence, data showing individual source emission measurements of these new upscaled livestock facilities as odor sources is of great importance. This study of a 50,000 animal swine-growing facility show that the greatest odor impact originates from the gestation buildings (1,200,00 ou/min), nursery buildings (630,000 ou/min) and field sprinklers (334, 156 ou/min). As shown by a comparison of urban odor source related citizen complaint data versus source measurement results and types of successful abatement actions on an urban scale, an air scrubber system to serve these buildings together with the substitution of ground injection to replace field sprinkling of liquid waste would be expected to achieve the improvement in odor control comparable to urban industrial sources with similar reduction or elimination of odor complaints.