Odour from your business activities can harm human health and the environment. It is important to find ways to control, reduce or eliminate odour from your business.
Businesses produce odour across different activities – for example:
- storing and handling raw materials
- processing materials
- dealing with products or byproducts from your business
- transporting and disposing of waste.
All industries need to manage odour. Find out about your industry's obligations.
Manage risks from odour
The general environmental duty requires you to eliminate or reduce risks of harm from your waste or pollution.
Follow a risk management process to:
- identify activities and processes that may produce odour
- assess the risks based on:
- the size of the activity
- the characteristics and intensity of odour
- pathways for odour transmission beyond your site's boundaries
- implement and monitor controls.
Assess odour
To help people assess the risk of offensive odour, we have developed Guidance for assessing odour.
This guide provides information on how to assess the risks posed by sources of odour. It also helps you understand how odour may impact the environment.
It is intended for people who need to understand offensive odours and provide evidence for odour assessments. This includes:
- government
- the planning sector
- practitioners
- specialists.
You can also use the guide to help you assess the risk of odour from your business activities.
Other guidelines help people to consider odour impacts when they make planning decisions about land use. This includes:
- Separation distance guideline [DOCX 3.2MB] for minimising the impact of odour around industrial facilities.
- Separation distance guideline [DOCX 3.2MB] for guidance on acceptable uses within landfill buffers.
- Supporting information for separation distance guideline and landfill buffer guideline [DOCX 3.8MB].
Australian Standards can help inform your risk assessment. The Australian Standard for Stationary source emissions, Part 3: Determination of odour concentration by dynamic olfactometry(opens in a new window) (AS 4323.3:2001) provides information on how to measure and evaluate odour concentration.
Our guide to Determination of odour concentration by dynamic olfactometry provides more detail about the use of the standard in Victoria. It includes advice on odour sample processes, storage and transport.
Monitor odour
You can use our Guidance for field odour surveillance to evaluate the extent, source and frequency of odour emissions. We provide recommended methods to monitor odour. These methods can be used by:
- businesses
- consultants
- planning professionals
- regulators
- anyone applying for EPA or council permissions.
Control odour
Prevent odour where you can. If you cannot prevent it, follow the hierarchy of controls:
- replace the source of the odour with an alternative that does not generate odour
- use physical, biological or chemical controls
- use administrative controls, such as procedures and training.
Odour control has 4 main elements:
- identify and characterise sources of odour
- capture emissions directly from the source where possible
- design and install effective odour treatment systems (pollution controls)
- manage [fugitive emissions], such as gas or vapour leaks.
We provide guidance to help you identify and capture emissions, including:
- Site planning and management
- Effective odour capture systems, such as extraction fans or fume hoods, to capture odour at the source
- Odour covers – physical barriers, such as tarps or fibreglass covers, to control odour.
Pollution controls are equipment that cleans emissions by removing pollutants. They either destroy contaminants or remove them before they're released into the atmosphere.
The pollution controls you choose depend on your business activities and the type of odour they produce. Often, more than one device is required. You may need to pre-treat emissions using one control to prepare them for a secondary control. Pre-treatment can be used to reduce (or increase):
- pollutant concentration
- pH
- moisture content
- particles
- aerosols or oils
- temperature.
Common pollution controls include:
- stacks – chimney structures that release gases high and fast to disperse odours
- biofilters – biological odour treatment systems that use bacteria to treat odour
- bio-trickling filters and bio-scrubbers – odour treatment methods that filter emissions through microorganisms
- carbon filters – filters that use activated carbon to remove pollutants from air
- chemical scrubbing – odour treatment methods that chemically dissolve or absorb pollutants that cause odour
- thermal oxidisers – devices that use heat to remove contaminants or turn them into less harmful compounds.
Condensers are also often used to pre-treat emissions by cooling and adding moisture before applying a secondary control.
Controls must be fit for purpose. Consider how you will use them and how effective they will be in your business. Make sure you install and maintain controls properly.
Do not use masking agents, such as air fresheners and sprays. They are not effective methods to control odour pollution.
Some control technologies for odour or volatile organic compounds use ozone or photoionisation. There are not many cases where these technologies have been used successfully on an industrial scale. Before you purchase this equipment, we advise you to gather evidence that it works. Check that it has the retention time and capacity to treat gases as needed.
You can use other controls not listed here. You must show us you've eliminated or reduced the risk of harm as far as reasonably practicable.
You may need advice from a qualified consultant.
Manage odour complaints
It's best to be proactive and reduce the risk of harmful odour as part of your general environmental duty. This will prevent complaints in the first instance.
To respond to odour complaints about your business:
- identify the source of the odour
- fix the cause of the odour
- keep the people who made the complaint informed where you can.
When trying to identify an odour source, you should avoid involving staff who are regularly exposed to the odour. They can become desensitised to it.
Keep a record of the complaint details to help you identify the cause and improve your controls. Records can include:
- the name, address and contact number of the person who made the complaint
- wind direction and speed
- temperature
- time of day
- what you were doing at the time
- what you’ve done to fix the problem.
Report odour incidents
If your business causes an incident that harms or threatens to harm human health or the environment, you must report it as soon as you become aware of it. This includes an incident that causes offensive odour.
If you hold a permission, you must notify us immediately if you breach any condition of your permission. This includes notifying us about any incident that harms or threatens to harm human health or the environment.
Example: how to control odour from your business
This case study shows how to apply a risk management process to manage odour. Use it as a guide only. Your business may need more or different controls, depending on your site. You may need advice from a qualified consultant to develop a risk management process for your business.
Odour from a composting business
Jude owns a composting business that receives and processes organic waste to make compost.
Odour is a known hazard in the industry. Jude understands it can cause nausea and headaches and can impact wellbeing.
Jude uses best-practice guidance about composting industrial waste to minimise odour.
Know the sources of odour
Jude's business composts green waste, but it also takes kerbside food and organic waste. Jude knows that organic waste, particularly food waste, produces odour.
Control and manage odour
Jude's business receives waste in a sealed building with automated doors that open and close quickly. The building also has extraction fans, which are an effective odour capture system. The fans channel smelly air to biofilters.
Jude's staff remove litter and other non-organic materials from the waste. They then shred it to begin the composting process. They do this in bunkers with an aeration system.
Staff follow a process to manage odours. They cover outdoor compost piles with a thin layer of mature compost. This acts as a mini-biofilter and helps absorb odour.
As compost matures, it becomes more odour neutral. Staff screen the mature compost outdoors before loading or packing it on to trucks for transportation.
Monitor and review controls
Staff conduct regular odour inspections at different times of the day. They record this information in a register.
Jude uses community feedback to help measure the effectiveness of odour controls. Jude keeps a log of complaints. Next to each complaint, Jude records:
- wind direction
- temperature
- time of the complaint
- details about what waste was being processed at the time.
If the controls do not work as intended, Jude considers additional or alternative odour controls.
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