BLC close to winning funding for RESTORM project
BLC Leather Technology Centre Ltd. is nearing completion in its negotiation with the European Commission to launch a major new environmental project for the leather sector. RESTORM (Radical Environmentally Sustainable Tannery Operation by Resource Management) is a project to conduct research that aims to help European tanners to secure a sustainable future. If all goes well, the project will receive Euro10 million in funding and will involve 20 partners from 8 countries.
The project’s targets have been split into short, medium and long-term aims. In the short-term, research will be carried out to attempt to ‘close the loop’ in the existing processes, so that both water and chemicals can be removed and reused. Work will be done to discover new materials that can be produced from solid waste, and energy studies will be undertaken to reduce consumption.
In the medium-term, the chemical process itself will be addressed, with the general aim to move from chemical processing in the beamhouse to biochemical processing. In the long-term the project will look at the potential for using waste from hides and skins in new ways. New products will be investigated based on collagen, in particular biomedical applications. This will mean waste can begin to be seen as a valuable resource for the production of high value goods and materials.
