Odour is an environmental characteristic that deeply affects the human life quality and psycho-physical wellness.
In the last years the scientific community and regulatory agencies have shown a growing interest in the odour emissions from industrial sources (and not) to meet the needs of the territory and to objectify these impacts. In this sense, today we often speak of "olfactory pollution",an expression used to describe the negative impact of the smelling substances on the environment and on the exposed population. Despite the olfactory nuisance is not always linked to an immediate danger, it constitutes a physical and psychological stress factor for the exposed subjects and it is also an “indicator of not healthy situations”.
The process
process
olfactory annoyance
Telephone complaint
As urban development is constantly growing, both in agricultural and industrial areas, it is possible to observe the increasing contiguity of civil and industrial settlements. Therefore, the problem of atmospheric emissions from odour substances coming from productive activities can not be more undervalued, as they often are the reason of discontent and complaints from the community living nearby the emission sources.
Telephone complaint
Receptors / Sampling
The solution is the innovative tool OdorTel®. OdorTel® is a digitized platform for the management of the olfactory nuisance. It uses an automated communication system through which a sample of available residents (called receptors) can communicate their perception of olfactory discomfort by simply contacting a telephone exchange, thus allowing the activation of real-time monitoring systems with an immediate objectification of the nuisance. The odour concentration is then determined in an olfacotmetric laboratory in accordance with standard UNI EN 13725.
Receptors
Sampling
Report / Analysis
The detected phone calls create automatically a database and a map of the odour that are being updated, hour by hour. Through the graphic interface it is possible to query the database and obtain information about date, time and number of reports both synoptically and on the map.
Report Analysis
Process Control / Bodies responsible measures
The ODORTEL® system is the new solution for the olfactory annoyance, allowing:
Citizens to express their discomfort in a simple and immediate way.
Public Agencies to have a map of the reported disputes.
Companies to have a useful tool for the study of the emission scenarios that helps them to limit odour emissions or control their values.