Newby Island Landfill Ordered to Use Drones and Monitors Against Odours
Milpitas residents hope continuous monitoring will pinpoint smell problems as they start, as regulators across the world struggle with odour complaints
By AXY Business Desk ·
Key points
- Local authorities have ordered operators of the Newby Island landfill in Milpitas, California, to use drones and install monitors to track odour-causing chemicals.
- The operators must also automate the collection of landfill gases, which are a major source of the smells.
- Residents such as Chia-Ling Kong say they still face around two or three hours of bad smells a day, despite improvements.
- Many countries have no regulations for managing smells, and the US EPA does not regulate odours as a pollutant, leaving states and local governments in charge.
Operators of the Newby Island landfill in Milpitas, California, have been ordered by local authorities to use drones and install monitors to systematically track and measure the chemicals responsible for bad odours. They have also been told to automate the collection of landfill gases, which are a major source of the smells. The order, reported by the BBC on 15 October 2026, reflects a wider effort to tackle odour complaints with data rather than relying only on residents' reports, and it arrives after years of complaints from people who live close to the site in the Silicon Valley tech hub.
The operators of the landfill say they are committed to operating it safely and protecting air quality. The BBC report does not describe the cost of the measures, the timetable for installation or the specific chemicals the monitors will target, so those details will matter as the requirements are put into practice.
A Long-Running Problem in Silicon Valley
Milpitas is an affluent city in California's Silicon Valley, the region south of San Francisco that is home to many technology firms. Despite its wealth and reputation, the city has an odour problem. For decades, residents have had to endure foul smells drifting from industrial sites, among them a 342-acre landfill.
Chia-Ling Kong, an engineer for a tech firm, lives around half a mile from the dump. She described the early years of her time there in stark terms: "When I first moved here, I could not open my window for over 10 years." She says things have improved in recent years, but she and her neighbours still contend with what she describes as "two or three hours of bad smells a day." Kong is also part of a citizens' campaign against the odours, showing how the issue has moved from private frustration into organised local advocacy.
The situation in Milpitas is not unique. The BBC report notes that communities around the world are complaining about bad smells that make day-to-day life miserable. The sources of the problem vary. Sometimes a rubbish dump is to blame, sometimes a sewage treatment works, and sometimes a reeking factory.
What Authorities Have Required
The requirements placed on the Newby Island operators have two main elements. The first is the use of drones and fixed monitors to track and measure the chemicals that cause bad smells. The second is the automation of landfill gas collection. Together, they aim to move from occasional checks to continuous measurement, so that problems can be identified and addressed closer to the moment they occur.
Kong sees the approach as a sensible response. "Hopefully with this continuous monitoring, it makes it easier to pinpoint problems at the moment it starts," she said. Her comment points to the central logic of the measures: a smell that is reported hours after it began is hard to trace back to its source, while a sensor reading taken at the time may show which part of a site is responsible.
For readers less familiar with the technical side, landfill gas is the mixture produced as waste breaks down under the ground. It contains methane and carbon dioxide, along with smaller amounts of other compounds. Some of these trace compounds, such as hydrogen sulphide, have a strong, rotten-egg smell even at very low concentrations. Capturing landfill gas through a network of wells and pipes, rather than letting it escape, is a standard practice at many landfills, and automating that collection is intended to make it more consistent.
Why Smells Are Hard to Solve
Odour is one of the more difficult environmental problems to manage. Unlike a visible plume of smoke, a smell can travel on the wind, change direction with the weather and vary in strength from hour to hour. Human noses are also very sensitive to some compounds, which means a concentration that is too low to measure easily can still be unpleasant or disruptive for people nearby.
The effects go beyond irritation. When smells are frequent, residents may keep windows closed, spend less time outdoors and feel stressed about the air around their homes. Local businesses and property values can also be affected, which is one reason complaints can escalate into political and legal disputes. Analysts who study environmental complaints often note that odour disputes are difficult to resolve because they combine a real, sometimes hard-to-measure nuisance with competing claims about who is responsible.
When complaints pile up, the usual first step is a regulator's inspection, followed by orders to change operations. But the process depends on having clear rules and reliable measurements, and both of these can be missing. That is why technology such as continuous monitoring is attractive: it can produce a record that regulators, operators and residents can all examine.
The Regulatory Gap
The BBC report makes clear that many countries have no regulations in place dictating how to manage smells. This gap means that operators and communities often have little common standard to work from. Instead, solutions depend on local permits, ad hoc agreements and the willingness of authorities to act.
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate environmental odours as a pollutant, according to the BBC. This leaves states and local governments to take charge of the issue. The result is a patchwork in which one community may have strict requirements and another may have few. For residents, this can mean that the level of protection depends largely on where they live.
This context helps explain why the Milpitas case is being watched. A local order requiring specific monitoring tools is a practical step, but it also shows how odour control can be handled at the level of a single site rather than through a national rule. Whether that approach spreads will depend on how well it works and whether other authorities decide it is worth copying.
Can Technology Solve It?
Technology offers several potential benefits. Sensors and drones can provide frequent measurements, time-stamped records and information about where a smell is coming from. If data are shared with residents, they can also reduce disputes, because people can compare their own experiences with readings from the site. Continuous monitoring can help operators find leaks or malfunctioning equipment earlier.
There are limits, however. A monitor can measure only the chemicals it is designed to detect, and a smell may come from a mixture of compounds that are not all tracked. Sensors must be maintained and calibrated, and their placement affects what they capture. Data alone also do not decide what counts as an acceptable level of odour, which remains a question for regulators and communities. Analysts would generally expect that the value of monitoring depends on transparency, clear thresholds and a willingness to act on the results.
The approach also raises practical questions about cost and responsibility. Requiring drones, monitors and automated gas collection may involve significant spending for operators, and the BBC report does not say how those costs will be shared or how long the work will take. Residents will want to know whether the data will be made public and whether a reduction in smells will follow.
What to Watch Next
Several developments will show whether the Newby Island measures make a difference. The first is whether the monitoring data are published in a form that residents can understand. The second is whether the number of complaints and reported hours of bad smell falls over time, as Kong and her neighbours hope. The third is whether other local authorities in California and elsewhere adopt similar requirements for landfills and industrial sites.
More broadly, the case highlights a gap that many countries have yet to close. Without clear rules on odours, the burden often falls on residents to document problems and on regulators to act case by case. Technology may improve the evidence, but it will not replace the need for agreed standards about what level of smell is acceptable and who is accountable when it is exceeded.
For now, the Milpitas example shows how a long-running nuisance can be pushed toward a data-driven solution. Whether that solution brings relief to people who have endured years of bad air will depend on what the monitors reveal and what the authorities and operators do with that information.
Topics: Newby Island landfill, Milpitas, Silicon Valley, Environmental odour, Landfill gas, Air quality, Environmental regulation, California
Sources: BBC Business RSS