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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Some Memphis residents have been complaining about a bad smell, like rotten eggs, travelling through the city across the last few days.

Now WREG is getting to the source of the smell.

It’s a tough scent to describe that’s wafting through the streets of Memphis, but everyone can agree that it stinks.

“That’s not a good thing, especially with Memphis growing, and we want people to come here. We have to do something about that. We need to find out what the source is and get it fixed,” resident Denisa Charles said.

The smell has garnered increased complaints, but the source is hard to pin down. The city of Memphis says the smell isn’t coming from the sewage system.

MLGW says they don’t have any projects that would cause an odor and pointed toward a potential Mercaptan delivery at Excel TSD, a local hazardous waste disposal facility that’s southwest of downtown Memphis.

Mercaptan is used as an odorant in the gas industry, and it’s described like a “rotten egg” type of scent.

Excel admitted to WREG that they use the compound but says they don’t have enough to stink up an entire city.

Bad smells can be embarrassing, but everyone agrees that whoever is behind the recent stench should own up to it and make it go away.

“We need to stimulate our own economy. Stimulate our own city. And to be able to do that we can’t have things such as a stench in the air, not making people want to live here,” Charles said.

Written by: Peter Fleischer