Scent-free campaign clears air at Dal

University pushing awareness of scent-free campaign

Jayme Melrose, a second-year community design student at Dalhousie University, was in a tutorial when a girl sitting nearby began putting on scented hand cream. She had to pack up her books and leave her seat.

"I could immediately feel it in my throat and up into the roof of my mouth. I couldn't really breathe," she says. "I had to move away from her."

For many students with scent sensitivities, scented products are a constant concern. Reactions vary, but can be caused by cleaning products, perfumes or deodorants.

Dalhousie has been a scent-free campus since 1995. If students look around them, they will see signs in many buildings, large banners in the Killam Library and the Student Union Building and posters on bathroom doors and telephone poles. All display the We Share the Air logo.

The problem is, most students don't pay close attention.

"People don't really read posters," says Laurie Melanson, a first-year student in costume design who also has a scent sensitivity. "Unless it's something that really interests you, it just kind of goes by."

Melanson's own sensitivity causes symptoms similar to seasonal allergies, but it is mild in comparison to one that her close childhood friend experiences. Melanson's friend had serious mood swings and health problems that doctors couldn't diagnose when she was a child. After more than five years of being tossed back and forth among multiple specialists, a naturopath finally diagnosed her with environmental illness.

"Growing up with somebody like that made me really think about what's important for me. Is it important for me to wear perfume? No."

The scent-free campaign, unlike the university's smoke-free policy, is not backed by law. The lack of enforcement, combined with poor policy awareness, means that students can still smell scents all over campus.

Stephen Ellis, an officer at the Dalhousie Environmental Health and Safety Office, is in charge of changing that.

"Think of yourself with a head cold or a flu, trying to do your work," he says. "You have to put yourself in their shoes because most of us don't have a sensitivity."

In the 12 years since the policy was adopted, Dalhousie has been a leader among universities adopting scent-free programs. In 2003, it was also the first university in Canada to go smoke-free. Dalhousie has since stopped purchasing cleaning products with strongly scented chemicals, and has developed a formal process for complaints that cannot be settled student to student.

The Breathe Easy program is an offshoot of the scent-free initiative which was started two years ago. Campaigners aim to promote the We Share the Air motto by distributing information, fridge magnets and other merchandise to students. They specifically target new students in September.

The posters and T-shirts are a start, but Melrose says they're not enough to raise awareness.

"I think guerrilla theatre or having scent police or something would be fun. Something different."

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