Brazilians visit Italy for environmental technology
15/09/2008
A Brazilian agri-environmental mission formed by 20 delegates from various organisations linked to the leather industry will be visiting Italy from 13 to 20 September. The purpose of the visit is for the group to get acquainted with an Italian technology that turns leather waste into organic fertiliser via a process known as 'technical hydrolisis'.
Also in the mission are representatives of the State Environmental Secretariat, the Environmental Protection Foundation (Fepam), the Regional (BRDE) and the Caixa RS Bank.
Besides the new technology, the members of the mission are planning to get acquainted with the Italian environmental legislation which is more up-to-date than that of Brazil.
'We must change our laws. To our legislation, chromium is just chromium,” said Leugênio Luiz Alban, director of Peles Pampa, of Portão, in Rio Grande do Sul in the build-up to the misson. “The Italian recycling process uses CrIII which is an organic material naturally found in the soil.”
Cézar Müller, representing the Industrial Federation of Rio Grande do Sul, has pointed out that the new technology may also be used to recycle the waste generated by the footwear industry, which increases the interest in the project even further.
Torvaldo Marzolla, co-ordinator of the Environmental Council at the Industrial Federation of Rio Grande do Sul (Fiergs) has highlighted that thanks to the new technology the 50 to 60 thousand tonnes of leather waste annually produced in Rio Grande do Sul alone (not to mention the rest of the country) will no longer be thrown away and will become fertilising matter instead. “We will turn waste into gold,” he said.
Leugênio Luiz Alban also revealed that a fertiliser producing company that already uses this technology is planning to set up a factory in Rio Grande do Sul in the first half of 2009. The company will be able to absorb 100% of the leather waste generated in the state both from tanneries and shoe factories. Before the company starts operating the Brazilian legislation banning the use of chrome III in the production of fertilisers must be modified.
Torvaldo Marzolla has explained that Brazil is the main leather producer in Latin America and this technology would solve 90% of the problem created by leather waste in the continent.
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