According to an upcoming report in the American Chemical Society’s journal Environmental Science & Technology - Reverse leather tanning - a new chemical process could revolutionise the leather-tanning industry. The process essentially works backwards from the point where conventional tanning ends, which researchers at the Central Leather Research Institute in Adyar, India, say can save time, money and energy while reducing water use and pollution.

According to a statement whilst conventional leather tanning requires about 15 steps, which produce enormous amounts of wastewater and pollutants, including sulfides, chlorides, sulfates and other compounds, the new approach flips the process around and eliminates some of the steps, which results in substantial improvement in production efficiencies.
According to the researchers, the reverse process produces leather that is comparable to conventional tanning, but requires 42% less time, 54% fewer chemicals, 42% less energy, 65% less water and cuts emissions of key pollutants by up to 79%.

In addition to this it is claimed that the reverse process is easy-to-adopt” and could help the global industry overcome emerging environmental and economic concerns.