Waste & Wastewater Firm Slashes Odour Complaints 

La Baillaudière, a multi-site waste disposal facility, part of BURGEAP environmental engineering in France, tackles landfill, composting and wastewater treatment. After installing an RQ Box to enhance odour management, odour complaints from nearby residents dropped from 29 to zero.

Environmental protection is high on the agenda for La Baillaudière. Minimising odour pollution plays a significant part in this, and the firm has a dedicated odour reduction programme in place.

Meeting the needs of local residents and authorities is a key objective of the odour reduction programme. In order to achieve this goal, a three-stage ‘continuous improvement’ strategy is deployed: Compile reliable and accurate information of each site’s impact in terms of odour production, Correlate instrumental measurements with possible odour complaints and Develop workable solutions to address and reduce processes identified as producing nuisance odours.

From 2006 – 2009, odour complaints from local residents averaged at around 26 per year. In 2009, this reached a peak with 29 complaints. La Baillaudière recognised that decisive action was required, and the RQ Box electronic nose was deployed. Data was married with that from local weather stations, enabling the influence of prevailing meteorological conditions to be taken into account.

After one year of gathering and analysing data, a more sophisticated odour management strategy was developed. This involved modelling the dispersion of emissions, allowing accurate identification of the processes and sites most at risk of causing odour pollution.

The outcome has been a significant reduction in odour complaints: there have been no complaints at all for two years. Defined thresholds for emission limits mean technicians are immediately alerted if a fault occurs and they can activate remedial activity in good time. Continuous monitoring of odours enables preventative measures to be deployed in a more focused and accurate fashion.

Management of odour pollution has traditionally been hindered by a lack of objective measurement techniques. How do you define the exact moment when an acceptable odour becomes a nuisance?

Thanks to a new technology – the ‘electronic nose’ or RQ Box, being supplied in the UK by Enviro Technology (UK) - it is now possible to achieve scientific profiling of odours. By sensing smells and raising an alert before they cause human discomfort, the equipment can trigger activity to tackle problems at an early stage. It is also possible to conduct predictive analysis, by establishing and monitoring odour pollution indicators.