VIABLE ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES INTEGRATED WITH CLEANER PRODUCTION - SUSTAINABLE OPTIONS FOR GLOBAL LEATHER SECTOR

World Leather tanneries process 16 to 17million tones of hides & skins per year and generate 600million m3 of wastewater. Nearly 60% of the World Leather production is carried out in Asian region and the tanneries discharge more than 350 million m3 of wastewater per annum. Environmental challenges due to the depletion of quality water resources, disposal of chrome containing sludge, increase in salinity, etc. have resulted in the development of sustainable cleaner production in tanneries and upgradation of treatment technologies such as advance oxidation for reduced sludge generation. Viable cleaner production and treatment technologies had been engineered in many individual and Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) in India, China, Turkey and other leather producing countries. Some of the recent developments in environmental protection technologies are (i) Improved chrome recovery system (ii) Advanced process control and cleaner production (iii) Special biological treatment system with mild chemical usage for reduced sludge generation (iv) Advanced tertiary treatment systems, etc. for the application of single or multiple stage Reverse Osmosis (RO) system for recovery of water. Recent applied R&D on the sustainable development in cleaner leather production, environmental protection techniques with focus on saving of energy, chemical usage, occupational health and safety, water-recovery for reuse, development of social forestry using treated effluent, salt recovery, marine disposal of saline reject with proper bio-control system, etc. are dealt in this noval technical paper.