Chrome-tanned leather loses its best defender
15/08/2019
Few companies or commentators have done more than Lanxess to try to explain that leather tanned in good conditions, using good-quality salts of trivalent chromium, presents no threat to human health.
Two of the 15 essays in our Nothing To Hide series address the question of the use of chrome in making leather, pointing out in detail the differences between trivalent and hexavalent chromium (which is potentially harmful) and explaining the benefits of chrome-tanning processes, such as the much greater speed, efficiency, consistency and economy with which leather manufacturers have been able to operate since the introduction of chrome to their processes in the nineteenth century.
Both those essays (part of a series that is open-source, free to share and now a feature of the Leather Naturally campaign) are contributions from Lanxess, having been compiled by the company’s advocate for sustainable leather, Dr Dietrich Tegtmeyer, and his colleague Dr Martin Kleban. These essays are available at these links: Chrome, the facts 1 and Chrome, the facts 2.
The Lanxess leather business unit has two business lines: organic leather chemicals and chrome chemicals. The company will continue to develop and bring to market the first line. Its chrome chemicals business will soon be in the hands, subject to approval of the deal, of Chinese company Brother Enterprises.
Haining-based Brother is already the third-biggest supplier of chrome chemicals to the global leather industry and it is feasible that it could take up the Lanxess mantle of consistently and enthusiastically making the case for chrome-tanned leather in the international arena. It would be easier to believe this might come true if the most recent piece of news published in English on its corporate website were not from 2012.
Lanxess has said that chrome chemicals no longer fit in with its strategic focus. Asked by World Leather if it thinks this will make it more difficult for the leather industry as a whole to defend its use of chrome in future, it said: “We do not want to speculate about how the industry might develop, [but] it is of course true that Lanxess can no longer speak out in favour of a business that, after closing the deal, will no longer be owned by Lanxess.”
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