Residents Affected by Chemical Odours from Factories in Pioneer Constituency

13 Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment what is being done to mitigate against the various chemical odours/fumes (besides cocoa) emanating from the factories in Pioneer constituency that adversely impact the households located within their close proximity.

The Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment (Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan) (for the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment): NEA continuously monitors the ambient air levels of key pollutants as well as Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs, which are organic vapours of common industrial emissions and precursors of ozone. The ambient VOC levels in the western region are in the parts per billion and parts per trillion range, well within safe levels which are mostly in the parts per million range. The ambient air quality in the western region was also in the normal range from January to September 2020, with the Pollutant Standards Index ranging from 14 to 66 in the Good to Moderate bands. This PSI is comparable to the rest of Singapore during the same period which ranges from 14 to 76.

NEA has in place a suite of measures to manage emissions from industrial premises, including factories in Pioneer Constituency. Emissions of key industrial pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, dioxins and furans are regulated under the Environmental Protection and Management Act. Factories are required to install pollution control equipment to ensure that their emissions are properly treated before discharge. Industries with processes that emit higher levels of air pollutants are required to engage accredited surveyors to conduct source emission testing and submit the test reports to NEA regularly.

NEA also conducts regular factory inspections to verify that their pollution control equipment is well maintained and operating effectively. About 150 inspections are conducted every year at factories in the Jurong area.

Some factories in the Jurong Industrial Estate, such as those specialising in the manufacturing of food flavourings and fragrances, generate certain smells during their operations. Such smells are generally not harmful to human health. NEA has advised these factories on additional mitigation measures, such as the installation of odour control systems and dispersion fans to reduce odours from their premises.

NEA will continue to ensure that industries meet air emission standards and will enforce against companies found to be non-compliant. My Ministry also regularly reviews the industrial emission standards to ensure they are on par with those in other jurisdictions.

Mr Speaker: Mr Patrick Tay.

Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan (Pioneer): I thank the Senior Minister of State for her reply and also for her assurance and guaranteeing the air quality and standards are within healthy range and not hazardous and noxious.

Just wanted to share because, just last night, in fact, two residents buzzed me through private message to share about chemical smells and odours coming from the nearby factory areas, mainly, Soon Lee as well as further down, near Boon Lay Way.

Essentially, the smells come partly exacerbated by the fact of strong winds and wind directions, so I just wanted to give a few suggestions to Senior Minister of State.

Firstly, beside regular checks, particularly from the HDB blocks that are facing the precincts to do checks in those areas rather than within the industrial area itself.

Second, whether we can do environmental audits in a more regular fashion for those industries which particularly have emissions of smoke, fumes as well as other odours.

Thirdly, whether NEA can work more closely with the community to be a bit more proactive, as and when we detect some of these cases to engage those companies and businesses in the area.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: First, let me thank the Member for his suggestions. Let me say that NEA will continue to monitor the ambient air quality in the area with respect to pollutant indicators as well as VOCs and so on. Indeed, we have continuous, real-time air monitoring sensors, a network of these sensors that will measure Pollutant Standards Index as well as VOCs, to ensure that the ambient air quality is within the range of good to moderate and that the VOC levels are within the safe levels. But I must caveat that we cannot guarantee; we will do our best. Some of these things are not within our control.

But, with regards to the three suggestions, I would say yes, we will take all this on board. Also, allow me to clarify that every time when a smell incident is reported, if it is distinctive and we can trace it to a specific factory, we will engage the factory and advise them to implement smell mitigation measures. Over the years, quite a number of these factories have been implementing or have implemented smell mitigation measures. For instance, scrubbers, odour control systems, dispersion fans and to the extent that some of them will also moderate their operations, in order to mitigate the smells.

And as the Member has rightly pointed out, particularly during the months from April to November, due to the Southwest monsoon as well as the inter-monsoon period, sometimes the wind will carry over these smells or the smells could linger because of lack of variability in the wind speed and so on. But, as I have said, for the smell incidents that have been reported thus far, we have not found elevated levels of ambient air pollutant indicators, which means that they are within safe levels. We will continue to proactively respond to such reports of smell incidents.

With regards to audits of the factories, we do regular checks for factories. So, for the higher risk factories and particularly for the large emitters, we need them to submit accredited reports on an annual basis and we actually check these high-risk factories twice a year. For the lower risk factories, it is once a year. So, there are actually measures that we put in place to mitigate this. And we will continue to see what we can do.