Composting may present certain technical problems which can negatively influence results in terms of environmental impact as well as of profit and loss account. The aim of this study was to estimate the efficacy of the analytic approach to evaluate the effect of removing the biofilter in a composting system. Results have shown the presence of foul-smelling emissions despite the fact that concentrations of investigated substances were well below the danger threshold or even below the method's detection threshold. Therefore, besides the analytic approach, the most reasonable choice seems to be introducing a reference method for evaluating odour emissions and the efficacy of composting systems.