THE ODOR IMMISSION REGULATION - COMMENTAR Y AND APPLICATION IN PRACTICE

Up to now several regulations exist in Germany which deal with odour p roblems from an administrative point of view. These regulations have p roved, however, too indecisive to guarantee the principle of equal tre atment. Therefore the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia took the initiat ive to issue a specific regulation to make the judgement of odour prob lems as objective as possible. The paper describes the essential eleme nts of this regulation, in particular the consequences for licensing p rocedures in case of new odour emitting plants as well as for odour co ntrol measures on existing plants, most often caused by odour complain ts. Implications on monitoring techniques are also presented.