REEKING HAVOC
What can be done about the toxic odours increasingly affecting our communities?
Bad odours can be harmful physically if they contain toxic chemicals. Odour is an indicator to warn people they are in danger
For over two years now, locals at Chao Lae Community in Chon Buri pro ince haven’t been able to breathe fresh air. Massive flow from a sewer tunnel located next to the beach their neighbourhood has turned part of the se into polluted, smelly water. After the news made headlines last month, a local fisherman said the only thing the authorities from the municipality did was to drop Effective Microorganism (EM)
balls in the sewage to get rid of the smell. But at times, the malodo rousness returns to wreak havoc on people in the community. Unfortunately, people in Chao Lae Community are not the only group having been affected by odour pollution. Recently on Pantip.com, a house owner in Bangkok was accused by her neighbour of causing unpleasant smells as she turned her place into a small oyster pond. The lady who laid the complaint said she’d purchased the house, located on Rama V, for 10 million baht, so she didn’t expect to experience such an unwanted residential environment.
Odour pollution has become a huge yet overlooked community issue in various parts of the country. According to last year’s data from the Pollution Control Department, odour pollution made up the largest percentage of complaints received by the department, around 45%. Of this number, 45% of cases were from factories, 22% houses, 11% animal farms and 7% trash-burning and landfills.
Of all the odour-pollution cases, Bangkok remains the most problematic city. From a total of 212 cases last year, 139 were from the capital. Even statistics from 2016 and 2017 showed similar pictures.
Asst Prof Pichaya Rachdawong from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Engineering explained that odour pollution has become a particular problem in recent years primarily due to city expansion. In the past, farming areas and landfills were far from residential neighbourhoods. After the city areas expanded, people moved to live closer to farms and landfills. Apart from such a shift in the urban landscape, Pichaya said what’s to blame when it comes to odour pollution is old and improper maintenance of public-utility systems.
“After being in use for years, concrete underground sewer pipes can produce hydrogen sulphide, which can cause corrosion in concrete pipes to the point that they can’t block sewer smells. To get rid of smells, the sewer-pipe systems must be changed or developed. Otherwise, in future there will be more problems with odours and gases.”
The impact of odour pollution is definitely something that should never be underestimated.
“If the bad smell isn’t strong, of course it might be tolerable to people. But a very strong smell can be very frustrating and, worse, a threat to people’s mental health. This is especially the case if they have to continually breathe the bad odour for a long period of time. Bad odours can be harmful physically if they contain toxic chemicals. Odour is an indicator to warn people they are in danger,” said Phunsak Theramongkol, director of Air Quality and Noise Management Division at the Pollution Control Department.
“Bad odours from chemicals can affect the ce al nervous system,” h dded. “For example, if people breathe a large volume of odorous gas, they will fall prey to headache, nausea, vomiting, unconsciousness, or even die.In 2009,there were reportedly 62 people in the MapTaPhut Industrial Area who were sent to a hospital with the said symptoms after smelling butane gas.”
There are two standard methods to measure odour concentration and intensity: human-sensory odour test and hand-held odour meter. The human-sensory odour test will be used only for substances that aren’t harmful to human beings, such as odours from food factories, animal-food factories and animal farms. Such a method comprises a panel of six to 10 people who are tasked to smell samples taken from factories or sites from which complaints are filed. The results are scaled from one to five, five being very strong. However, for substances that are hazardous to human health, a hand-held device will be used.
The Pollution Control Department uses both the human-odour panel and a hand-held device to measure odour concentrations in and out of industrial zones.
“We measure at two points — industrial fence lines and industrial ventilation. According to the 2005 Regulations on Industrial Air Odour Test Standard, in industrial fence lines, areas outside industrial zones must have less than 15 odour units while areas inside industrial zones must have less than 30 odour units,” explained Phunsak.
“At industrial ventilation, areas outside industrial zones must have less than 300 odour units and areas inside industrial zones must have less than 1,000 odour units.”
If someone experiences bad odour and wants to complain, he or she should first discuss the matter with a person in charge of the construction or places that produce the stink, so the problem can be fixed right away. If such a method doesn’t solve the problem, then the issue can be further taken to local state offices, starting from the District Administrative Organization to the Municipal Office, Provincial Offices for Natural Resources and Environment, Damrongdhama Office, the Pollution Control Department or even up to the Prime Minister’s Office.
“After the Department of Pollution Control receives a complaint, officers will co-operate with the authorities at local government offices. If the local office needs any support, such as odour-measuring devices, experts and devices will be sent to the local office,” Phunsak said.
Short-term solutions can, however, be implemented to help lessen the odour pollution immediately, Phunsak said. “For example, there is a complaint about intolerable smells from a pig farm. And we find people at the farm don’t clean up and don’t keep pig dung in a container with a proper cover. The owner of the farm will be ordered to clean up every day and if they want to keep the dung, they should keep it far away from the community. It may take time for them to build up a large container that will be far from the community, but the container can be a long-term plan.”
Given that odour pollution has topped the Pollution Control Department’s ranking for several years, does it mean Thailand, again, has faced poor law-enforcement? Phunsak disagrees with this but believes stricter regulation is a must.
“Now, our standard for areas inside industrial zones is less than 30 odour units. Currently, the city is expanding. People will live closer to industrial zones. We should change the standard to a maximum of only 10 odour units. If we launch a new regulation, factories must employ high technology to improve their standards. Take Japanese factories as an example. They are hygienic. We should raise our standard level.”
Pichaya, on the other hand, thought Thailand has implemented enough regulations. But the problem might actually lie on awareness. He is of the opinion that the Thai education system doesn’t provide up-to-date knowledge for students and people when it comes to odour pollution. In such cases, he believed the public and street vendors should be educated as to what they should do to not produce the pollution themselves.
“In the United States, when summer heatwaves are coming, workshops are set up for people to learn what they should do during that time, such as drinking plenty of water. The authorities and state officers should go to markets and let people and street vendors know that bad smells from sewers can be a terrifying problem. Stagnant water could cause life-threatening, toxic gas.
“So we should tackle the root cause of the problem by asking people not to dump plastic bags or pour fat into sewers. It’s their neighbourhood. If they don’t care, they themselves will be in trouble.”