Hydrogen supplied gas present in tanneries and effluent treatment plants (ETPs) has proven fatal to workers exposed to it many times.

It is therefore necessary that the owners and managers of tanneries and effluent treatment plants are fully aware of the dangers posed by this poisonous gas and take all preventive and precautionary measures to protect the workforce from exposure to this gas. In the event of accidental exposure of a worker, they should know how to deal with the situation.

UNIDO’s activities in the leather processing has as one of its important objectives, improvement of occupational safety and health practices in tanneries and effluent treatment plants. Under this objective, the project has been seeking to demonstrate in selected tanneries improvement practices for better occupational health and safety of the workers.

It is hoped that the industry representatives and other concerned with the occupational health and safety of workers in tanneries and effluent treatment plants will find this publication useful.

Dissolving the hair substance in the course of liming and unhairing entails a high load of organic pollution in wastewater; as the environmental demands have grown acute, it has become necessary to further reduce wastewater pollution load as much as possible. Hair-save technology, using only chemicals traditionally applied in liming, is among simple and good options towards achieving that aim. Hair-save unhairing is far from being a general practice as yet, but in future the increase of environmental costs and external pressures might make it more attractive. In addition to process description, equipment requirements, the scope for utilization of hairs obtained as well as cost considerations are also provided.

For an easy reference older papers are also available.

The study titled Life Cycle Assessment, Carbon Footprint in Leather Processing prepared for and presented by F. Brugnoli during the XVIII Session of UNIDO Leather and Leather Products Industry Panel in Shanghai in 2012 provided detailed explanations, definitions and terminology pertaining to leather’s carbon footprint.

It also contained specific suggestions on how to proceed in addressing this issue. Subsequently, it was not only extensively discussed by eminent international leather specialists, but it has triggered a series of activities involving different regional and global establishments.

The essence of that paper, reactions to it and some other views were reflected in a special chapter in UNIDO’s comprehensive study The Framework for Sustainable Leather  Manufacture, a chapter dealing with carbon footprint aspects of leather processing.

That chapter is now here presented as separate paper for the benefit of readers primarily interested in the carbon footprint considerations. 

In addition to earlier content, the paper also presents the main features of the European Standard EN 16887 (approved in Nov 2016, published in March 2017, applicable not later than Sept 2017) Leather – Environmental footprint – Product Category Rules (PCR) – Carbon footprints. It is quite likely that the European norm will prevail globally.

The paper presents the results of the implementation of solar collectors in three Bangladeshi tanneries as well as of energy audit in four Bangladeshi tanneries to evaluate and improve their electrical performance.

It is well known that tanneries use high amounts of hot water and electricity, and today energy costs are raising very fast all over the world, with energy costs increasing their share in the costs of leather production. Other problem especially in developing countries are frequent power cuts and problems with energy supply. Tannery relocation planned in Bangladesh from Hazaribagh to new Tannery Estate Dhaka is an opportunity to implement measures to reduce energy consumption which should lead to reduced costs for production but also reduced GHG production. Therefore, within the Re-Tie-Bangladesh project (Reduction of Environmental Threats and Increase of Exportability of Bangladeshi Leather Products1) UNIDO has implemented two actions to reduce energy costs in Bangladeshi tanneries: use of solar energy - solar water heating and electrical performance improvement.