(Yicai Global) Nov. 22 -- China may  revise its standards of what is considered as pollutants, as bad smells  account for nearly 18 percent of all residents' environmentally-related  complaints, according to data from the national  12369 Environmental Report platform.

Chinese residents have woken up to a bad  smell of business in their backyards as 22 percent of all environmental  complaints in the eight months ending August involved odors coming from  sources such as petroleum refining, production of rubber, drugs, paper,  as well as keeping livestock. After noise, this was the second-most  popular source of annoyance in people's habitat.

China is planning to revise the standards  to meet the requirements, said Wang Heng, an expert at the China  State Key Laboratory of Odor Pollution Control, at a related conference  today. 

Beijing, Tianjin and other cities with  developed economies and dense populations filed about 30 percent of all  these complaints, said Yang Chaofei, the former chief engineer at the  Ministry of Ecology and Environment. 

The industry should focus on reducing  pollution and control the process with appropriate technologies, using  the Internet of Things and big data, Wang said, adding that also the  level of communication needs improving.  

Challenges are also opportunities and the  golden age for odor control is about to start as the industry is  expected to maintain high growth in the next few years, Wang added. The market for monitoring odor pollution is expected to reach CNY100 billion (USD14.4 billion), according to some reports.

Editor: Emmi Laine