Paris
THE celebrated French sense of smell, nurtured down the centuries on the
fruity bouquets of fine wines, is now being applied to a less palatable subject:
air pollution. 快猫短视频s are training volunteers in Grand Couronne, a village
outside Rouen in northern France, to recognise the different smells given off by
a local rapeseed oil factory that is accused of fouling the village鈥檚 air. They
hope the results will help the factory to eliminate the offending chemicals from
its emissions.
Residents of Grand Couronne have been complaining of a sulphurous stench ever
since the Saipol factory was built in 1993. But their objections were too
subjective and unquantifiable for the factory to know what action to take. The
new technique is designed to identify precisely those molecules responsible for
the smell.
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The 17 volunteers are being trained over four months to distinguish the
smells of 45 different molecules. They will be taught to associate the smell of
a chemical with a smell they know well. For instance, isobutylamine smells like
camembert cheese, acetyl pyrazine like cooked rice.
鈥淭he idea is to find your own personal smell-associations,鈥� says Maryline
Jaubert, educational director of IAP Sentic, a biochemical company specialising
in odours that is training the volunteers. 鈥渀That stinks鈥� is definitely not a
part of the vocabulary.鈥� Her husband and work colleague Jean-Noel, a researcher
at the University of Le Havre, says: 鈥淯nlike colours or sounds, we are not
educated in this sort of classification as children.鈥�
After the training course, the volunteers will test the constituents and
intensity of the smells in the air outside their windows twice a day from
January until June next year. At the same time, the factory will use its new
拢800 000 odour-removing equipment. To test whether the equipment is making
a difference, the volunteers will not be told which days the factory turns it
on.
Alain Brinon, regional manager of Saipol, admits that the factory is emitting
a 鈥渃abbage-like鈥� odour. 鈥淚t has a sulphurous component which some people compare
to eggs,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he aim of this joint exercise is to objectively find out
the intensity and the exact molecular composition of these odours.鈥�
Some residents are already sceptical. 鈥淟ast time they said they had improved
the process, the smell got worse,鈥� says volunteer 鈥渘ose鈥� Jean-Jacques Metayer.
But others would like to see the technique extended to monitor other pollution.
Marie Jose Malkiels, another volunteer, singles out diesel fumes.