ODOR MANAGEMENT IN JAPAN — A CASE STUDY AND RECENT IMPROVEMENT

In Japan, the Offensive Odor Control Law was enacted in 1972. According to this law, odors are regulated based on the concentration of specified offensive odor substances measured by the instrumental analysis, or odor index which is a value concerning the degree of the odor measured by the triangular odor bag method. The City of Ube, a typical industrial city of Japan, has a remarkable history of air and water pollution control. Regarding the environmental odor management, Ube City made an agreement with local factories about environmental preservation and has been conducting on-site inspections of odor index at odor emission sources. Ube City also commissioned local citizens near the industrial area to monitor environmental odor and report the results to the city. For appropriate and effective environmental odor management, the measurement of odor is one of key elements. In 2002, quality control manual for the triangular odor bag method was published, and nationwide interlaboratory comparison has been conducted since 2002 using several standard odor samples. Such continuous efforts will encourage olfactometry laboratories to keep measurement quality and local authorities to introduce regulatory policy based on olfactometry.