Processing of one tonne of raw hides results in approximately 100 kg of wetblue shavings, the utilization and/or safe disposal of which is globally a serious challenge. Currently a part of the chrome shavings is used in the manufacture of leather board by combining with shavings of vegetable tanned leather. There have been also other methods tested and used to convert shavings into sellable product, e.g. application in paper, wood and other industries.

The method described in this report is enzymatic digestion.

Conversion of chrome shavings into usable products employing the technique of enzymatic digestion as developed in the United States of America and already implemented in a 3 tonnes/day commercial plant in the Czech Republic. Three products, namely, gelatable protein, protein hydrolyzate and filter cake are obtained from enzymatic digestion of chrome shavings. While the products obtained find use in construction and plywood industry and also as nitrogenous fertilizer, the chrome-containing filter cake can be used as a reducing agent in the preparation of basic chromium sulphate.

The method was successfully demonstrated at pilot scale in India using wooden tanning drums.

Typically only a small part of fleshings is used for manufacture of glue and animal protein while the major part is dumped as waste at landfill or disposed of along with other solid wastes. The unutilised fleshings, containing high concentration of lime and sulfide, putrefy and produce obnoxious odour. They also cause groundwater pollution, attract flies, rodents and stray dogs and thus represent a public nuisance. Due to high moisture content handling and transportation of fleshings is quite difficult. On the other hand, one tonne of wet fleshing with 85% moisture is estimated to generate 20-30 m3 of biogas. To solve the disposal problem of fleshings, one of the options considered and tested during UNIDO Regional Programme in South-East Asia was biomethanation. The results of testing at the pilot plant, the first of its kind in the region, are given in this report.

Due to climatic conditions the scope for green processing is limited in many countries, sodium chloride is widely used to preserve raw hides and skins. It contributes to a high volume of total dissolved solids (TDS) in the soak waste liquor. No commercially viable technology for treating effluent has been developed to date. A large amount of the salt sticking to the hide and skin surface can be removed by shaking the hides mechanically or manually.
Within the framework of the UNIDO regional programme for pollution control in the tanning industry in South-East Asia, a pilot demonstration unit was set up to demonstrate different options for

(a) desalting hides and skins prior to soaking and

(b) reusing dusted salt in the pickling operation after purifying the salt recovered.

This report covers the demonstrations carried out during the period January 1997 to February 2001 of desalting of salted raw stock and use of the recovered salt in pickling.

This study is primarily focused on the pollution load discharged in effluents and the scope for decreasing that load. In addition to knowing how to produce and sell high quality leather, tanners must also be familiar with techniques for decreasing the pollution load discharged in effluents from individual processing operations. The study aims at heightening tanners’ awareness of those techniques. It calculates the decreases possible in a well-managed tannery processing bovine hides into chrome tanned leathers and describes how pollution load can be reduced by introducing advanced technologies based on low-waste processing methods that have been proven on an industrial scale will be taken into account. The study does not consider industrially unproven and purely experimental methods.