Challenge of Odour Management in Malaysia

Full text: The odour nuisance complaints from the haze that occur every year in Malaysia is very acute. The trend shows that odour problems have become more and more serious every year. The sources of odour complaints come from various types of activities such as uncontrolled burning of materials and the emission of odour discharged from industries such as animal raring industries, chemical industries, rubber processing industries, municipal solid wastes (MSW), sewage treatment plants, palm oil industries, petroleum industries and etc. There are many odour control technologies to solve the odour problems at the moment for small scale industries but the big problem is that some of the sources of odour created are big scale and not far away from the people. At the same time, in Malaysia, there is no regulation concerning the specific odour parameter stated in the Environment Quality Acts 1974.The Department of Environment had drafted a regulation in order to monitor this problem, relating to the nuisance coming from these industries but until now the regulation still remain pending upon the approval from the Parliament. The aim of this paper is to present the big challenge in introducing the odour regulation in the country. (author)