Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

Suspicious odours emanating from sewers near a print shop were the source of neighbours’ complaints to municipal officials. Fire-fighters conducted measurements of both explosiveness and toxicity and proceeded to clean the collector pipe with water. During a print shop inspection, the inspection authorities for classified facilities noted that the shop operator was using screens (wood-framed plastic plates) to hold the dyes before printing and cleaned them daily by: soaking in a tank containing an oxidising solution, treating persistent stains with a solvent, and then washing with large amounts of water. The rinsing effluent, discharged directly into the sewer, was most likely causing these ambient smells. Inspectors for classified facilities recorded the facts and requested the operator to eliminate effluent stemming from this screen printing activity as a special industrial waste.