Tanners respond to housing developer’s accusations
15/09/2009
A property company has threatened to go to court to force tanneries in the Menemen Leather Industry Free Zone near the Turkish city of Izmir to imrove odour control and waste treatment.
The tanning cluster has been in place since 1992 and at that time was around 20 kilometres outside the city. It says it had no complaints from the villagers and farmers who lived close to the cluster.
Izmir has expanded rapidly in recent years and some new developments are much closer to the leather producing facility. Residents of one of these, a collection of 2,000 holiday homes built by a developer called Ege-Koop, have become concerned about unpleasant smells coming from Menemen tanneries. The building company has complained that tanners are not treating their waste properly and has threatened to take them to court.
A representative of the tanners has said that the leather industry made a specific request to the authorities in Izmir on setting up the cluster not to allow developers to build housing developments too close to Menemen. He insisted that tanners operating in the facility work hard to respect the environment and said: “We do not deserve these accusations.”
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