Canning, Western Australia (you can smell it from here)

(Click to enlarge, and usually again to magnify)

The following information has been researched by informed residents who are registered builders and engineers.

• Rubbish from green top wheelie bins is mixed with bio-solids (sewerage, pig manure, fish, chook manure) in large digesters (revolving drums). [Pinkham Way may only process the 'organic fraction' of black-bag waste in a similar way on-site]
• The intense activity of this combination creates huge amounts of odour and heat.
• The process is so powerful that dead animals (like cows or horses) can be turned into compost within 3 days (it’s used in Canada to dispose of animal carcases).
• This compost then sits in the aeration shed for a further 28 days as it matures, creating once again huge volumes of foul odours.
• The odours are supposed to be contained within the building, but have been escaping because the negative pressure required to suck air into the building and prevent odour escaping is not any where near negative enough.
• The $2.4 million dollars recently spent was on collecting the odour though ducts at the top of the building and was money wasted.
• The odours collected are pumped through bio filters (large beds of woodchips) that are supposed to have micro organisms to eat the odour - but they have failed.
• The Waste Composting Facility management team claim inexperience so they engaged external consultants (The Odour Unit) who have failed to cure the problem.
• The operators only method is to flood the bio filters - which kills the micro organisms - and allows the stinking odour to escape untreated.
• The sound of the air escaping from the bio filters is similar to the hot mud pools in New Zealand where air bubbles escape the surface.
• The air temperature inside the aeration shed is sometimes 70 degrees Celsius, and the once forced through the bio filters cools to 40 degrees.
• Hot air rises - so sometimes it's not smelt at the boundary of the facility - but when it cools (about Bannister Road or Leeming) the whole stink is then blown through our suburbs.
• The odour manufacture is continuous, not dependant on hours of operation, meaning we can be assaulted by the odour 7 days a week, 24 hours per day, depending on wind direction.
• On still cool nights - a temperature inversion (a cold blanket of air) prevents the hot odour from rising, trapping it and spreading it out to everyone at once.
• Temperature inversions occur over the Jandakot basin (one of Perth's coldest locations) on frequent occasions.

Kind regards,

Canning Melville Community Odour Action Group