|
|
|
|
National Tree Day Planet Ark Home
|
|
|
||
|
China's "Professional Noses" Sniff Out Polluters |
||
|
Mail this story to a friend | Printer friendly version
|
||
| CHINA: June 21, 2007 | ||
|
BEIJING - An environmental monitoring station in southern China is recruiting people with keen noses to sniff out foul gases in the atmosphere and provide more accurate readings of air quality.
|
||
|
A team of 11 "professional noses" at a monitoring station in Panyu, an industrial town in the Pearl River delta in Gaungdong province, had been trained by air pollution experts, Wednesday's China Daily quoted a senior official at the station as saying. "Now we can differentiate between hundreds of smells that may make people ill, before making an assessment on their density," vice-director Liu Jingcai said. "The work is quite unpleasant. We have to stay in a lab smelling those awful gases repeatedly," he added. Liu said the team would complement the station's scientific equipment with the aim of helping bring pollution violators -- including chemical producers and rubbish processing sites -- to account. But long-term career prospects were hazy. The professional noses' accreditation would need to be renewed every three years, "as one's sense of smell diminishes with age", the paper said.
|
||
|
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
|
||
|
