Environmental odour control for sustainable development of public odorous premises in urban areas

Environmental friendliness is one of the key elements in the sustainable development and siting of public odorous premises. This can only be achieved by adopting effective odour control design in HVAC systems. Odour nuisance presents one of the most difficult tasks to be handled. The lack of a scientific approach and a clear statutory guideline has made the problem even more complicated. This paper will give an outline of Building Services Branch's experience in the design and implementation of appropriate odour abatement measures for the public odorous premises such as refuse collection points, markets, cooked food centres, slaughter houses, public toilets, etc. for Government projects in Hong Kong. Discussion will be made on the statutory requirements, odour assessment method and the acceptable odour criteria. The available technologies and mitigation measures to combat odour as well as their advantageous and drawback will be discussed based on the experience in application. Recent concern on indoor hygiene and air quality has fostered new design for odour treatment and discussion will be made on some new proposals adopted.