Cleaner chrome tanning — emerging options

More than 90% of global leather production of 18 billion sq. ft is through chrome-tanning process currently. The conventional methods employed for tanning lead to significant material loss and serious environmental concern. The current chrome management options like high exhaustion tannage, chrome recycling and recovery–reuse methods, though offer improvements, do not provide comprehensive solutions. Two new options viz. closed loop aluminium–chrome combination tanning and two-stage tanning have now been developed and field-tested. These options add economic and environmental benefits to chrome tanning through modifications in process methodologies.