Odor regulation

For centuries, human society has been confronted with problems of public hygiene, insalubrity and inconvenience linked to foul odors. These odors are initially linked to sanitation practices (or rather non-practices), as illustrated by the following testimonial:

"There runs through all the streets of the city a stream of fetid water where the dirty water from each house is discharged, and which stinks up the air: so one is obliged to carry flowers of some perfume in one's hand to drive away this smell" (Monsieur d'Ierni, 1596, quoted in André Chauvrière's "Parfums et senteurs du Grand Siècle").

In the wake of often uncontrolled industrialization, the 18th century saw the gradual emergence of a fundamental approach to industrial pollution. Two laws concerning the arts and health were passed in 1790 and 1791. The imperial decree of 1810 introduced the notion of odor and inconvenience, specifying in article 1 ^er that "factories and workshops that emit an unhealthy or inconvenient odor may not be set up without permission from the administrative authority".

However, this awareness and its translation into regulations will only be able to deal with odour nuisance problems very gradually:

"The persistence of "Paris smells" is proof, however, of the slow evolution of municipal practices. Right up until the eve of the First World War, and despite the fact that the sewerage system had been approved in 1889 and the Achères aqueduct completed in 1895, the capital remained a stinking place in summer. [...] In the summer of 1911, the crisis erupted. The smell suffocated walkers, especially in the evening; according to the experts, it was a stench "of shoe polish, of heated organic matter". This time, thanks to Verneuil, the culprit was discovered: the superphosphate factories in the northern suburbs. The labor belt imposes its guilty stench, just as the abominable Montfaucon once did. Industry has replaced excrement in the nauseating hierarchy". (Alain Corbin, "Le miasme et la jonquille", 1986).

Since then, the inclusion of odor issues in regulations has continued to develop.

As early as 1961, air legislation made it possible to regulate the emission of odorous gases, with penalties for non-compliance.

In 1975, waste legislation required all waste producers and holders to dispose of their waste in conditions that did not give rise to odour nuisances.

In 1976, the regulations governing facilities classified for environmental protection (ICPE) made facilities likely to present serious hazards or inconveniences for local residents subject to a prior authorization system and to the obligation...