A review on management of chrome-tanned leather shavings: a holistic paradigm to combat the environmental issues.

Raw hide/skins come to the tanners as a by-product of meat industry which is converted into value-added leather as product for fashion market. Leather manufacturing is a chemical process of natural biological matrix. It employs a huge quantity of water and inorganic and organic chemicals for processing and thereby discharges solid and liquid wastes into the environment.

Sodium metasilicate based fiber opening for greener leather processing.

Growing environmental regulations propound the need for a transformation in the current practice of leather making. The conventional dehairing and fiber opening process results in high negative impact on the environment because of its uncleanliness. This process accounts for most of the biochemical oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand in tannery wastewater and generation of H2S gas.

Reversing the conventional leather processing sequence for cleaner leather production.

Conventional leather processing generally involves a combination of single and multistep processes that employs as well as expels various biological, inorganic, and organic materials. It involves nearly 14-15 steps and discharges a huge amount of pollutants. This is primarily due to the fact that conventional leather processing employs a "do-undo" process logic.

Silicate enhanced enzymatic dehairing: a new lime-sulfide-free process for cowhides.

A conventional dehairing process with sodium sulfide and lime is a major source of the pollution from the tanning industry. In other words, conventional dehairing processes degrade the hair to the extent that it cannot be recovered; thus, these processes become a major contributor to wastewater pollution. In this study, an attempt has been made to develop a lime and sulfide-free dehairing process using a commercial enzyme formulation with the activation of a silicate salt.

Natural leathers from natural materials: progressing toward a new arena in leather processing.

Globally, the leather industry is currently undergoing radical transformation due to pollution and discharge legislations. Thus, the leather industry is pressurized to look for cleaner options for processing the raw hides and skins. Conventional methods of pre-tanning, tanning and post-tanning processes are known to contribute more than 98% of the total pollution load from the leather processing.