Solid wastes generation in the leather industry and its utilization for cleaner environment-A review

Abstract

Leather industry, one of the polluting industries because of generation of huge amount of liquid and solid wastes, also emits obnoxious smell because of degradation of proteinous material of skin and generation of gases such as NH₃, H₂S and CO₂. Solid wastes are raw trimmings, fleshings, chrome shavings, buffing dusts and keratin wastes. Accumulation of these wastes lead to sludge problem and choking of treatment pipes and finally results in reduction in efficiency of treatment plant. Treatment of solid wastes also is not cost effective, posing economic burden to the tanners. Leather industry in the developing countries is facing lot of solid wastes problem and many tanneries closed for not meeting bio-chemical oxygen (BOD) demand and total dissolved solids (TDS) norms. The objective of this paper is to review the kinds of solid wastes generated in leather industry and the useful technologies developed to overcome the solid wastes problem.