14 DAY TRIAL // Given the fact that, throughout the years, Beijing has grown to have countless sewage treatment plants and other such waste management facilities, it is not difficult to guess that maintaining air quality here within reasonable limits is quite a challenge.
However, it seems that the government has succeeded in coming up with an efficient – and probably not even very costly – solution to this problem.
Thus, they take individuals and train them to use their sense of smell to detect various “disturbances” in air quality.
Known as “human sniffers,” these people apparently have been around for years in Beijing. Their hound-like abilities allow them to aid local environmental authorities in doing their job.
As Popsci reports, each “human sniffer” has his/her own area of expertise.
While some are trained to track down hazardous odors coming from sewage treatment plants, others are responsible for keeping a close eye (or better said, nose) on farms, stockyards and municipal dumps.
The same source informs us with respect to the procedure by which harmful chemical compounds are pinned down by human sniffers.
It all begins with technicians collecting air samples from various areas where air quality is expected to be somewhat doubtful.
During the next phase, the human sniffer is presented with three bags: one containing fresh air and two containing possibly polluted samples.
If the later do indeed contain contaminated air, there will of course be a difference in terms of smell when compared to the fresh air bag.
In order to determine just how serious the situation is, the air in one of the contaminated bags will be continually diluted until there is no sensible difference between it and the all-clean sample.
Based on the number of dilutions, environmentalists can decide what needs to be done next.
Although this air-testing method seems quite efficient, we should still like to question its impact on the “human sniffers'” overall health.