Expert questions Uttar Pradesh pollution breakthrough
28/07/2011
After the news appeared on leatherbiz, Mr Kumar, who runs Titan Leathers in Kolkata and is chairman of the board of governors at the college of leather technology in the same city, got in touch to say that the technology in question, lyophilization, is “neither new nor innovative as lyophilization, or the deep freezing of hides to below minus-40 Celsius, is a much-followed technique in the pharmaceutical and biochemical industries”.
Firstly, despite the importance as a processor of by products of the meat industry, as a livelihood provider for the economically and/or socially backward millions in rural India, or even as an important export segment, leather industry suffers greatly from image deficiency, and is known more as a polluter, an image which is not restricted to India alone and is a global phenomenon. Feeble attempts by one or other country in attempting a image make over has had little impact so far..
The reported technology is neither new nor innovative as ‘lyophilization’ or the deep freezing of hides, below -40 deg Celsius, is a much followed technique by the pharmaceutical and the bio-chemical industry for many decades.
He said India could only dream of putting lyophilization in place for hide collection and storage. It is the seventh largest country in the world, with a total area of nearly 3.3 million square kilometres. “Nearly 50% of the hides that arrive in the tanneries are from fallen cattle, often pulled by carts away from human habitats for several kilometres, to be flayed by a particular community,” Mr Kumar continued. “We are talking about several thousands of such lyophilizers crisscrossing the country burning fossil fuels both for their access to the collection sites as well for the deep freezing of several tonnes of hides under low pressure conditions to sub-forty degrees Celsius.
With due respect to the Central Leather Research Institute, my enquiries revealed that they too have little experience of lyophilization and its impact on the protein matrix at such low temperatures. The impact on such hides through the journey, from the flayer to the collector, to the agent to the wholesalers, from the hide markets to the tannery, often stretching over several weeks, through hot humid climate conditions or incessant rains has not been studied either.”
Mr Kumar also pointed out that a cost comparison between treating the salt in preserved hides at the effluent treatment plant stage with the energy consumption costs of lyophilization needed to be initiated. He believes the action of the pollution control department in sending out a notice to tanneries to stop sourcing salted hides from October 2011 was too sudden.
“Pollution is a global subject and the international tanning industry must unite to invest in the global chase for greener adaptable technologies,” he concluded.
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