Why does garbage smell the same

To help reduce the smell inside your garbage, try leaving these types of yard waste outside the bin until the day before trash pick-up. This prevents the items from mixing with whatever liquids are inside your garbage and accelerating the decomposing process.

We love our furry companions but getting rid of their poop is a smelly affair. Dog waste already has a hefty smell on its own. But when you start mixing it with your garbage, the odor gets even worse. When food begins to decompose, microbes start to multiply and feed on that decomposition. It contains decaying, putrescible materials such as meat or vegetables or diapers. As meat decays, it attracts bacteria that feast on the amino acids in the meat's proteins.

Vegetables also can rot and slowly liquefy as microbes attack the vegetables' cell structure and the fermenting liquids warm up the garbage bag. As more gasses and liquids are produced, the bag may rupture. It may sound gross, but it is just garbage at work. The odors from the decomposition process are a variety of goodies with nasty sounding names. Although these smells are obnoxious, they don't pose a health threat. However, the rats and flies attracted by rotting garbage do. The good news is that our modern garbage collection and disposal systems have guaranteed that trash is no longer a public health problem in America.

But we are still left with the smell. Our individual reactions to odors are subjective. Some of us have a better sense of smell than others. Another 1. In a New York Times story, a woman suffered a succession of unpleasant phantom odors , from dank earth to burnt chili. When antibiotics failed to treat the condition, she simply learned to live with it — and avoid disagreeable odors. Even if there is no underlying tumor, epilepsy or some other infection, problems with your sense of smell can be very disabling.

Furthermore, doctors will often treat it like a psychiatric problem, with patients visiting an average of seven physicians before getting help, says Hirsch. The irony is, some people with phantosmia will develop psychiatric disorders, depression or suicidal behavior as a result of their condition. Sometimes people think the stink is coming from themselves, which can lead to a condition known as olfactory reference syndrome, says Hirsch.

While pinpointing the cause of phantosmia can sometimes be difficult, treatment is available, including nasal saline drops, anti-depressants, sedatives and anti-epileptic drugs.