Nose for trouble: Italian town seeks ‘odour evaluators’ to sniff out bad smells | Italy

An Italian town is looking for a team of sniffers to identify bad odors as part of its quest to improve air quality.

Bruno Beltrame, mayor of Brendola, a small town in the northern province of Vicenza, said he launched the campaign to recruit six “odor evaluators” after complaints about “unpleasant odors” coming from people living in neighborhoods near industrial zones.

The main condition for this position is not to suffer from allergies or respiratory diseases such as asthma. Recruits must have a car and a smartphone, which will be used to record odor data on a dedicated application.

Led by a company specializing in odor measurement, they will be trained to distinguish odors, for example those generally emitted by factories or those coming from industrial waste or wastewater.

Their mission will then be to go to targeted areas to carry out sensory evaluations. If an unpleasant odor is detected, they will spend time sniffing the air before recording their perceptions on the app.

The ultimate goal of this process, which should last six months, is to trace the origin of the odors.

“We did a similar survey about five years ago in an industrial area close to where the bad odors are currently coming from,” Beltrame said. “From there, we were able to identify the companies emitting bad odors. We are now expanding the geographical scope to find out if the same companies have resumed emitting bad odors or if there are different ones.”

Vicenza is part of the Po Valley, a vast geographical area straddling the provinces of Veneto as well as Piedmont, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna. The Po Valley is one of the most polluted areas in Europe in terms of air pollution.

“We are at the bottom of the valley, just before the Alpine foothills,” explains Beltrame. “It is therefore a huge project because these areas are among the most productive, but they are also those which risk creating pollution.”

He said several province-wide initiatives continually aim to improve air and water quality. “We have many protocols in place and if businesses break the rules they face heavy fines. »

Brendola is home to around 4,000 people who, over the years, have become more committed to protecting their environment. Beltrame said: “Where before they might have been a little careless, today they are more inclined to want to improve their quality of life and their environment. So when they see abandoned trash or smell stale air, they report it. We are happy because this allows us to intervene quickly to prevent potentially worse disasters.”

Local officials initially advertised job vacancies, which are paid, before Christmas, but there were no takers, “perhaps because the advert was posted so close to the holidays that many may have turned up their noses,” Beltrame said.

But since the ad was re-posted on Facebook this week, about a dozen people have applied. “They were mostly university students who had a few hours to devote to their studies, and they seemed very enthusiastic.”