Our sense of smell is said to be the most likely of our senses to conjure up memories.
For me, the smell of aloe-scented Lady Speed Stick deodorant transports me back in time to junior high school gym class. This must have been the scent and brand I wore back in those days, which is why I am reminded of such a specific time frame when I catch a whiff of that particular odour.
The experts say that the part of the brain responsible for our sense of smell, the limbic system, is related to feelings and memory, which is why certain smells invoke certain feelings and memories. Maybe this is why people are so bothered by the smell coming from our local ethanol plant. They don't want people to remember Weyburn as the city that smelled like...stale beer, yeast, or whatever else you might compare the odour to.
I have heard that some people have gone to great lengths to try to prove that the emissions from the ethanol plant are unsafe. "Crack" investigators, such as the one who drove out to the plant with their CO2 detector to test emissions, found that the results were not good. But that could be because they were in their vehicle, which emits CO2 from its tailpipe.
Another ethanol plant ill-wisher apparently told our Environment Minister that all of the CO2 detectors on the shelves at Canadian Tire went off at once one day, which they attributed to the proximity of the plant. I don't even know where to begin with this one - perhaps the fact that the testers require batteries to work (batteries not included).
I was surprised to hear about the lengths people were willing to go to get rid of the plant and its odour. Are our noses really that sensitive? Whenever I hear people complain about the smell coming from the ethanol plant I always say, "It could be worse; it could be a pig rendering plant!"
Scent is apparently a matter of opinion. What smells good to one person may smell awful to another; hence, the variety of colognes and perfumes available on the market.
There were people on both sides of the fence (so to speak) when the perfume scent "freshly cut grass" came out on the market. Other unusual scents have since become popular perfumes, such as cucumber.
Our tastes can change over time, regarding smell. As someone who always wore musky scents, I recently changed to a floral-inspired perfume.
Perhaps over time we will come to relate the plant's odour to something more pleasant, such as fresh bread. Who knows? Our tastes may change.
