What is a Pollution Sniffer?

Back in 2006, the World Health Organisation reported that of the top 20 most polluted cities in the world, 16 of them were in China. Indeed, as recently as 2011 it was found that Chinese power plants emit more noxious gases (NOx) than all of the passenger cars in the world, combined.

Such alarming statistics prompted the Chinese government to take affirmative action, implementing a series of measures to try and curb their harmful emissions and improve air quality. Much of this strategy revolved around greener energy production methods, but also involved more sophisticated methods of monitoring the quality of the air that Chinese residents breathe. One of these methods utilised ‘pollution sniffers’.

Human vs Machine

A pollution sniffer, as unlikely as it might sound, is the title attributed to a group of trained professionals whose entire workload is focused on smelling and identifying different pollutants in air samples. Specifically, the sniffers have been operating in the Chinese town of Panyu, sampling extracts of noxious gases which are present in the city’s air due to the high number of refuse sites and production factories.

Of course, advances in technology mean that we now have apparatus and machinery which is also capable of detecting the density of various kinds of harmful pollution in the air. However, the humans have one distinct advantage over the machines – they can exhibit physical manifestations of smelling the noxious compounds, such as recoiling or flinching. As such, they represent a clearer and easier-to-read method of determining how polluted the air is and which contaminants are present.

An Unpleasant Form of Expertise

Scientists who are exposed to these noxious smells in more concentrated bursts than the man on the street quickly develop a keener sense of smell for the gases, in much the same way that a wine connoisseur is capable of detecting more subtle nuances in the palate of a wine. In this manner, the sniffers can be said to be experts at their jobs.

However, their expertise comes at a price. As you can imagine, the job is not the most enjoyable. “The work is quite unpleasant,” explained Liu Jingcai, head of the sniffing team at Panyu. “We have to stay in a lab smelling those awful gases repeatedly.”

Even more concerning than the unpleasantness associated with the labour is its health risks. Prolonged exposure to these noxious gases mean that Liu and his colleagues are at grave risk of developing cardiovascular difficulties, which could lead to illness, hospitalisation or even death, in extreme cases.

Therefore, pollution sniffers do not represent a prudent long-term strategy in the battle against pollution. Instead, we must harness the power of technology, which has made incredible progress in recent years, to better monitor the quality of our air.

Artificial Alternatives

There already exist a myriad of devices equipped with measuring levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) and other harmful contaminants, both for home use and for measuring pollution levels in the atmosphere at large.

Indeed, just this year the Air Quality Emissions show 2015 pinpointed the monitoring of emissions as the cornerstone of the event. With emerging technologies being developed across Europe and the Americas, it’s surely only a matter of time before pollution sniffers become a thing of the past.