What Gets Up Your Nose?

From Pongsonby to Smellons Bay, Auckland is a city of er... fragrances. John Landrigan gets a whiff on a tour of duty with the nose police.
Lift your nose high in the air, take a deep sniff. What can you smell? Does the person closest to you smell it, too?
What's a pong to one person is an aroma to their neighbour. Is that splash of perfume on a colleague overly fragrant? Do you get a stale whiff when a heavy smoker boards the bus, or when you have a rather too-close encounter of the body odour kind?
We can put most of these down to life in a big city. Those, and the other smells that define different parts of Auckland - the perfumes of Parnell Rose Garden or the salty sea breeze of the City of Sails, as much as the fertiliser in the rosebeds and the stench from Cox's Creek.
Some are the memories of childhood, recent or long ago: hops drying at Lion Breweries in Newmarket or the DYC vinegar factory at Ponsonby; Weet-Bix toasting at Sanitarium's Pah Rd factory as generations of kids played soccer across the road at Seymour Park; Otahuhu's Southdown and Westfield abattoirs, the Mangere "pooh ponds" near the airport.
You have to be a longtime Aucklander to remember fresh bread baked in the early hours of the morning, perhaps at the Tip-Top's Stormont bakery in Kingsland, or countrified air just a brisk breeze from Queen St.
But many more potent examples assault our senses, like ... well, like a bad smell waiting to be inhaled by the vigilant pollution officers charged with curbing them.
ALL SEVEN Auckland councils field complaints about bad smells but pass most concerns to the regional council. With oversight of environmental matters, it has logged 222 complaints so far this year; about even with the 342 complaints of 2008. These do not include smells emanating from eateries; those are checked by local councils.
The official name is "air discharge complaints", and they're sniffed out by a 10-strong "pollution response team".
It's a tricky business. Noise can be defined by a numeric standard - a decibel reading. Odour's effects on people cannot be so scientifically measured.
Asked what scientific instrumentation his crack team of experts use, team manager Gareth Noble told us matter-olfactorily: "The human nose". It is, he explains, the most accurate method of assessing offensive or objectionable odours. A nose for the job, noses to the grindstone, then.
IF YOU sniffed the air when you began reading this, you would have detected odours others couldn't. This is due to variable smelling capabilities. And men, especially ageing men, have a poorer sense of smell than women, even though women's aromatic ability alters monthly.
People can be tested for odour sensitivity. It's called nose calibration, but Mr Noble says the test is not a prerequisite for the ... got to say it ... nose job.
Aucklanders are certain about what infuriates their senses: burning plastic, chemicals, musty smells, a pig-farm type of smell, burnt coffee, wet carpet and rotten eggs are among the complaints.
Smells can, of course, be useful. Cunning real estate agents brew coffee or suggest leaving a fresh-baked loaf of bread out to give a welcoming feel at an open home.
The Aucklander has heard of one cookie manufacturer who wafts the product's scent outside the shop to entice customers. In a quick and entirely unscientific poll, Kentucky Fried Chicken gained frequent mentions for the infamous smell wafting from its stores.
The company is aware of this. In a Canadian television ad an actor driving past KFC opens his car's vents to let in the aroma of the 11 secret herbs and spices. The fast-food chain doesn't hide the fact its smell is a marketing feature.
A spokesman for Restaurant Brands, KFC's parent, refused to comment on why, since the technology exists, the company does not contain this smell.
KFC aside, the historic smells of Auckland are dissipating into the freshly cleansed air or are drowned out by car fumes, and disappearing with the factories that have produced some of them.
Newmarket's Lion Brewery and Ponsonby's DYC vinegar factory are making way for more odour-neutral shopping and apartment buildings. Mangere's "pooh ponds" - okay, the wastewater treatment plant - and the one on the North Shore have been cleaned up. You'd also struggle to smell Weet-Bix or an abattoir because new, expensive technologies minimise their fragrances.
Pong patrolman Gareth Noble says his team does what it can to prevent industry having to move out of built-up areas because of complaints. "We're testing to see if their discharges are appropriate."
THE PROBLEM IS: what is appropriate for a suburban street or a new resident in an industrial zone?
The regional council began tallying all smell complaints in 2007. Mr Noble's nose police gather data through their nostrils and put it through a formula called FIDOL: Frequency, Intensity, Duration, Offensiveness and Location.
Dr Terry Brady, who has over 25 years' experience consulting on air pollution and control, says the location of homes within industrial zones threatens industries as new arrivals find old smells offensive.
He has made design recommendations and assessments for many industries on boilers, incinerators, crematoria, chemical works, MDF plants, fumigation facilities, quarries and aggregate plants, waste-processing plants and composting operations.
He worries important industry will be chased from the region because of the number of people moving into industrial zones and taking umbrage.
"Industrial zones should be regarded as sacrosanct - treated like gold and protected - and they're not," he says. "This is costing industry millions and costing the region's jobs.
"It's an unbelievable scenario to have mixed zones - industry co-existing with residential. It is an incompatibility imposed on lawfully established industries."
Dr Brady points out the absurdity of some streets where zones change. "You're permitted to make smells on one side of the road but not permitted on the other side because of zoning. Industry will be forced out and there will be no industry and fewer jobs."
Industrial clients (he cannot divulge names) are considering closing their doors. Others have been forced to move: the Meadowlea margarine factory from Newmarket to East Tamaki. Huhtamaki Flexible Food Packaging is concerned about new zoning rules in New Lynn, he says.
Fletcher Building's Plyco Select manufacturing plants in Penrose and Kumeu let as many as 80 workers go after closures last year.
Work to control the company's smells were estimated between $2 million and $4 million. Dr Brady says odour controls imposed were far too stringent.
"No way on earth any of those odours were problematic in terms of health. But it is difficult to convince residents of that. Industry should have a place where they can make a smell. You should not need hospital-grade hygiene."
In Mt Wellington, residents around the Reliable Way light industrial area are raising concerns about asphalt works.
It's not just heavy industry that smells. Auckland might be latte city, but don't try roasting coffee in Ponsonby or Mission Bay; Avalanche Coffee Roasters brewed 10 complaints for its West Auckland operations. A mushroom grower departed its Manurewa site some years ago.
Despite his concerns about overzealous controls, Dr Brady agrees the regional council has been lumped with a raw and permeating deal. It opposed re-zoning on Reliable Way, where planned houses would stand at chimney height.
You have to wonder who is going to be the independent voice opposing zoning rules when the councils amalgamate - and who will be there to sniff out the industries that are getting up our noses.
Got something sniffy in your part of Auckland? Tell everyone about it.
Email: letters@theaucklander.co.nz or click on the 'have your say' icon above.