Overview of the Leather Industry and Pollution Impact

Abstract

The growing awareness of the human and environmental vulnerability, to the pollution resulting from industrial activity, highlights the urgent need for control and mitigate the degradation of the world as we know it. The leather industry, considered as one of the industries with a significant environmental impact, applies several chemicals, some of them considered as hazardous chemicals, such as chromium, in leather production. The restricted EU environmental regulations have driven the search for a process that ensures regulatory compliance and a final product that fulfills society’s requirements. The present review describes alternative options, applied in the leather tanning process in the last five years, to overcome some of the industry barriers, without compromising the final characteristics of leather.