The Odour Special Interest Group (OSIG) of CASANZ has recently sent a newsletter commenting that the Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA Victoria) has released two new publications in the lead up to the Environment Protection Act 2017 that are effective since 1st of July 2021. 

   The first guidance deals with biofilter design and maintenance and has the title EPA Publication 1880: Biofilter design and maintenance. This guide provides information for industry, consultants and assessors on how biofilters can be constructed and operated. The second guidance provides three methodologies to carry out field inspections. The EPA Publication 1881: Guidance for Field Odour Surveillance provides a recommended approach for conducting odour surveillance to evaluate the extent, source and frequency of odour emissions.

    The German Guideline on Odour in Ambient Air (GOAA) has been around for a good couple of decades, but it was just this... a Guideline. There were no  general odour limits in the German main legislation on ambient air (TA Luft). During the last years, the GOAA has been fully accepted at court as a regulatory system, so this was the logical step forward.

   Last Friday the Federal Council of Germany approved the amendment of the TA Luft and now the odour impact criteria set in the GOAA will be incorporated into the TA Luft, meaning that the GOAA will no longer be a Guidance, but it will become an odour regulation. That is, Germany there will be a regulatory limit of 1 odour hour in ambient air that cannot be exceeded more than 876 hours a year in residential areas.