This year the council plans to spend the same plus another $100,000 for two staff and vehicles allocated to graffiti removal.

Each year councils in the west and south-west of Sydney pour thousands of dollars into cleaning up graffiti and tags.

But resourceful companies have come up with new security measures, all on display last week at the Security 2008 exhibition.

One such company is E-Nose, which has created a piece of equipment that is able to tell if spraypaint is sprayed in the area, thus setting off an alarm letting people know that possible vandalism is taking place.

Graham Bell, the chief executive said the product was not originally designed to catch someone doing graffiti red-handed, but for use by companies wanting to measure the smell or airborne chemicals.

In 2006, the Queensland Rail Corporation suggested the device could be used to detect vandals on trains.

"That's when we became aware of the growing need for graffiti detection,'' Mr Bell said.

"People are sick of looking at it, it's a scourge.

"We can detect a four-second spray from 45 metres away - if they spend four minutes there it will be a much greater distance that the cloud will travel.''

The device has several "nostrils'' where the smell triggers a silent alarm with police or council officers.

State Development Minister Ian Macdonald said the device has the potential to stamp out graffiti.

"Graffiti is a major problem that costs property owners millions of dollars in maintenance costs each year and impacts on public amenity,'' he said.

"The E-Nose device is fully automated, portable and provides continuous security monitoring around the clock.

"It can be installed anywhere within the range of an internet or satellite telephone data transmission system.''