Odour can come from many sources, including septic tanks, compost heaps, rotting vegetation, fertilisers and rubbish. Sometimes odour can affect neighbours and interfere with their normal activities. If severe enough, it can impact on people's health.
Gardens
Septic tanks
An on-site sewerage facility is any system that stores, treats and disposes of household wastewater on the property.
Grey water
Grey water is waste water generated from baths, showers, washbasins and laundries which can be diverted for use on lawns and gardens.
Discuss with your neighbour
People are sometimes unaware that their activities are causing a nuisance. Ipswich City Council encourages all residents and business operators to talk to their neighbours first about nuisance problems and only make a complaint if the issue remains unresolved.
Before you proceed with lodging a complaint, please refer to the below question to see if Council is the appropriate contact for your issue.
Does your complaint relate to an area in Swanbank or New Chum?
If you answered yes, please contact the Odour Abatement Taskforce
If you answered no to the question listed above, please follow the below steps to lodge your complaint with Council. Have the following information ready:
Contact Council by one of the methods below:
Note: If the issue is occurring outside of business hours, the complaint can be actioned by council’s after-hours patrol officers. Please contact Council when the issue is occurring (24 hours) so that an investigating officer can be tasked to attend to the location while the nuisance is occurring.
Council will initially attend the property causing the issue and determine if odour pollution is detectable or the cause is evident. As part of the inspection, the following can occur:
If the alleged property consists of an industry involving landfill or composting, please refer to the Department of Environment and Science’s pollution hotline 1300 130 372 or pollutionhotline@des.qld.gov.au. It is likely that these industries have an Environmental Authority to undertake an environmentally relevant activity (ERA) such as landfill or composting operations. ERAs are industrial, resource or intensive agricultural activities with the potential to release contaminants into the environment.
Additionally, an ‘Odour Abatement Taskforce’ has been developed by the Department of Environment and Science to investigate and respond to concerns raised by the community about odours, dust and other environmental nuisance in and around Swanbank or New Chum. For further information, please see the Odour Abatement Taskforce webpage.