Tanners bear no blame for Igualada orange cloud
13/02/2015
The accident took place at a company called Simar, which is a supplier of a wide range of chemicals to diverse manufacturing companies all over Spain. Within this, Simar supplies a small number of products to the leather industry.
Igualada and the surrounding area is home to around 25 tanneries. Although these companies bear no blame for the incident, caused by workers at the chemical distribution plant accidentally mixing supplies of nitric acid with iron sulfate, it happened at a particularly bad time for the local tanning industry.
At the end of 2014, Catalonia’s regional government, La Generalitat, said proposals for a had won initial approval for a new, purpose-built ‘Innovation Park’ that will house all the tanneries in the Igualada area alongside leathergoods manufacturers, research and development centres and service provider companies.
Following this initial approval, a public consultation exercise began. The tanning industry in Igualada will now have to take steps to reassure local people that the ‘orange cloud’ incident need have no effect on confidence that leather production sites in Igualada will continue to be safe and desireable.
Igualada has a proud tanning heritage and the town’s leather industry association, el Gremi de Blanquers d’Igualada, is currently working on a parallel project to set up a new cultural centre presenting Igualada as the European capital of quality leather. The town is also home to the leather innovation faculty of the Igualada Engineering School.
Last year, Xavi Badia, who is currently president of el Gremi de Blanquers d’Igualada and of Spain’s national tanning industry association Acexpiel, said: “We want to become better known throughout Europe for what we do. We have a real industrial, educational and business heritage here. We have the cluster, the tanning school, technology centres, a common effluent treatment plant and two leather museums. Soon we will have the new ‘Innovation Park’ too. There is nothing else like this in the tanning industry in Europe in the twenty-first century.”
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