Second World Leather Congress goes ahead in Milan
08/09/2015
Under the title Trends And Future Challenges, the event attracted around 400 delegates from all over the world.
A highly diverse programme included presentations on the situation of the leather industry in a number of countries and regions, including Germany, Taiwan, the US, Brazil, China, Italy, the UK, Turkey, Portugal, Mexico South Africa and the COMESA region of eastern and southern Africa.
Later, there were detailed presentations on meat demand, hide availability, developments in tanning machinery and in leather chemistry, as well as talks on consumer demand for leather and on innovations in consumer-facing technology.
Addressing delegates, ICT president, Rino Mastrotto, said he felt the tanning industry was in danger of “going too far” to meet demands in areas such as environmental management that, he claimed, come more from media or lobby groups than from consumers. He gave the example of customer organisations taking tanners to task over their use of chrome. “I’m talking about chrome III,” Mr Mastrotto insisted, “not chrome VI. Without any facts or scientific support, some are asking us to abandon chrome III when between 82% and 85% of the leather in the world is tanned using chrome III. We are losing our common sense and we need to get it back, for the sake of all the stakeholders in the leather value chain.”
At the end of the event, ICT secretary, Paul Pearson, said the third World Leather Congress will take place in Shanghai in 2017.
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