Mohammad Shakeel Ahmad, 34, who works at the King’s International Tannery based in Unnao, points to an unusually empty section of the facility where raw hides are typically stored. “This is where we store raw hides, but it is empty today and has been like this for the past 15 days. We will only get new raw hides in about a month now. We only bring them in when we have orders,” says Ahmad.

Located 35 km from the ‘Leather City of India’, Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh, Unnao is a tannery cluster with around 50 active tanneries. The other major cluster, Jajmau, has about 250 operational tanneries. The tannery industry near Kanpur developed rapidly under British rule, driven by demand from the nearby cantonment area for military gear such as leather boots, along with access to water from the Ganges, abundant labour, raw materials and vast undeveloped land.

Ahmad, a third-generation tannery worker and a resident of the Nawabganj area in Unnao, explains, “There was a time when there were approximately 400 tanneries across both the Jajmau and Unnao, with around 200,000 to 250,000 labourers who depended on this industry for their livelihood. But today, the situation has deteriorated. We are running at half capacity.” The change started in 2017 after the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) imposed certain restrictions on the factories’ operation due to high pollution.

Mohammad Ahsan, Managing Director of Akmal Sons, explains, “At the end of 2017 the Central and State Pollution Control Boards asked the tanneries to cut their infrastructure by half, failing which a penalty called environment compensation of Rs. 12,500 per day would be levied. We run the factory for 15 days a month and at half capacity. For instance, if we typically processed 50 hides in a day, now we process 25 hides each day and for 15 days a month.”

The cost of treating tannery waste went up from Rs. 2 per hide to Rs. 22 per hide in 2022. The tanneries bear the cost of treating effluents that go to the Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) from primary treatment plants (PTPs) within the tanneries. Today, the cost of processing per hide comes to around Rs. 88, as tanneries, running with half the resources and for half the number of days, are operating at 25% of their full capacity.

The restrictions on the factories’ operations and increased costs have caused significant business losses, says Mohammad Ahsan. “Of the 402 listed tanneries, only around 215, both small and large, are operational now. These too function under many restrictions that have made business nearly impossible,” he complains.

Tannery owners and workers say that as doing business becomes more difficult, business owners in the leather tanning trade, are leaving Kanpur. “Small and medium players have already moved out of the system,” says Ahsan. Instead, they are renting or buying tanneries in Kolkata. Some have formed partnerships in Vietnam, Turkey, and some European countries to produce finished buffalo leather, as orders are drying up due to operational limitations.

A complex process

The leather industry in India is regionally diverse, with Kanpur specialising in buffalo leather due to the local availability of buffalo hides. This region hosts tanneries along the banks of the Ganga river, with many facilities owned and managed by the local Muslim community. These tanneries fall within a designated “Red Zone” of highly polluting industries and face operational restrictions during significant religious events like the Kumbh Mela, where they are required to shut down for three months.

Processing hides and skins into leather is a complex procedure. The process includes several stages, such as curing, preservation checks and desalting, soaking, and reliming. Mohammad Izhaar, factory in-charge of Kings International, explains that immediately after slaughter, hides are removed from the carcass and thoroughly salted at the slaughterhouses to prevent bacterial growth. Once salted, 55% of the water in the hides is removed, and they are dried for three to six days before being sold to tanneries.

Production in the tannery begins with the preservation and desalting of raw hides, starting with a mechanical inspection to remove the salt used in preservation. The initial factory inspection involves testing for bacterial damage by pulling hairs from the hide. Taj Alam, Managing Director of Kings International Ltd., describes the first operational step in the beam house, where non-usable parts are trimmed, and hides are soaked to remove salt, dirt, and blood. This is done mechanically using a desalting machine, often referred to as a ‘salt shaker’, which shakes off the salt while preparing the hides for further processing.

After desalting, the hides undergo a soaking, which helps to clean the hides further and prepare them for tanning. Alam explains, “This stage marks the beginning of the pollution process, but factories in Unnao have now started to use a hair-saving machine provided by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).” The introduction of this machine has notably reduced pollution levels. Alam elaborates, “When hair is removed from the hides during leather processing, it significantly reduces the amount of organic material — such as proteins found in the hair — that ends up in the wastewater. Since the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) measures the amount of oxygen needed to break down organic materials in water, removing the hair means there’s less organic matter to break down. As a result, the oxygen demand in the wastewater is halved, decreasing the COD by about 50%. This makes the water easier and less costly to treat and cleaner when released back into the environment.”

Throughout these processes, the tannery industry generates significant wastewater that eventually flows into the Ganga river. A paper published in 2019 states, “Tanneries are the most responsible industry for disposing of untreated effluent in the Ganga River at Kanpur, which contains heavy metals, especially chromium. Besides chromium, tannery effluent contains other heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and copper, which are toxic in excess amounts.”

Environmental pressures spur innovation in Unnao’s cluster

Operational challenges in Unnao’s tannery cluster have catalysed efforts to transform tannery practices in response to environmental and community pressures. Taj Alam, the Managing Director of Kings International Ltd., shares insights from his company, founded in 1994 in the industrial town of Unnao. The factory thrived in the export market for over two decades, supplying leather goods to Europe and North America.

About a decade ago, environmental concerns, particularly water pollution, began to severely impact business operations, tarnishing the local leather sector’s reputation and leading to a sharp decline in exports.

In 2016, Alam and 17 other factory owners in Unnao made a critical decision to invest in Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) treatment plants. They aimed to make 80% of the water used in their processes, reusable. To further support this initiative, Alam established a laboratory within his factory, where his team rigorously tested the recycled water to ensure its purity and explored ways to optimise the plant’s operations for full capacity.

Ahmad, who has worked in these tanneries for over 14 years, explains the ZLD process: “The recycling process involves multiple stages, starting with sedimentation tanks to remove large solids and suspended particles. The water then undergoes advanced filtration processes, including sand filters and membrane filtration, to eliminate finer particulates and dissolved chemicals like chromium, salts, and tanning agents. After this, we test the water in our lab to ensure it meets the required standards for reuse. Once approved, it is reused in the next process. The ZLD system allows us to recycle and reuse about 80% of the water for reliming.”

Besides this, many tanneries in Unnao have started replacing sodium sulphide, a hazardous and corrosive chemical, with enzymes for liming. “Sodium sulphide releases toxic gases, harmful if inhaled, and can contaminate soil and water. Enzymes, on the other hand, biodegrade naturally, making them a safer alternative,” Ahmad said.

In 2016, the UNIDO, in collaboration with the Council for Leather Exports and the Kanpur Unnao Leather Cluster Development Company, organised an innovation award contest for tanneries in Kanpur implementing cleaner technologies. Winning this award marked a turning point for Alam, bringing international recognition to his sustainability initiatives and resulting in a 30% increase in exports, restoring trust in his business.

The award and UNIDO’s support had a positive impact on local small and medium enterprises (SMEs), ensuring their sustainable integration into both domestic and international supply chains, locals say.

While Unnao’s tanneries increasingly adopt the ZLD system to address river contamination, a different scenario unfolds in Jajmau, the bigger cluster of tanneries.

The case of Jajmau

The Jajmau tanneries are one of the oldest industries in Kanpur, situated near the Ganges. The local leather industry is a major export sector, with the export value reaching Rs. 4,500 crore in the fiscal year 2012-13. However, allegations of pollution have plagued the industry.

According to a research report in the International Journal of Science and Research, there are four major drains in the Jajmau area of Kanpur. These drains collect all the water from around the tannery cluster in Jajmau and throughout Kanpur. Few interceptor stations are located on the peripheries of the slums. These stations serve as powerhouses for various treatment plants, filtering out solid waste such as excreta, animal waste, and sludge. The treatment only partially filters these effluents, which then flow to the CETP located 20 km away.

Kuldeep Singh, in charge of the Jajmau treatment facility, says, “Our facility receives sewage water from various locations, which we then treat. It has a capacity of 173 million litres per day (MLD). Additionally, for tanneries, we have a 36 MLD facility on our premises that treats tannery effluent. After treatment, the water is discharged into the Ganga River through an irrigation channel.”

Tannery workers express concerns.” Jajmau is equipped with four pumping stations designed for tannery equipment. However, sewage lines do not cover the entire area. The conventional channels direct both domestic and industrial effluents to these pumping stations,” explains Babu Siddiqui, president of the Small Tanner Association. He further notes that these stations send the effluents to the CETP. “The population increase in the area has exacerbated the situation, with approximately 200,000 residents contributing to the effluent load. Today, domestic effluent, recorded at 9 MLD, matches that of the tanneries.”

Siddiqui adds, “At all four pumping stations, the effluent from tanneries is recorded at 9 MLD, while an additional 9 MLD comes from domestic sources, totalling 18 MLD treated at the CETP. The plant was originally designed to handle 11 to 12 MLD but is now processing up to 18 MLD, indicating that an excess of approximately 6 MLD is being handled by the system.” This strain on the system could potentially lead to overflows or insufficient treatment, allowing untreated or partially treated effluents to be released into the environment.

Need for coordinated efforts and infrastructure upgrades

Amitrajeet A. Batabyal, Interim Head of the Department of Sustainability at the Rochester Institute of Technology and author of Tanneries in Kanpur and Pollution in the Ganges, published in Regional Science Policy & Practice, notes that the primary issue with water pollution in the Ganges is its nature as a complex case of non-point source pollution. This means the pollution does not originate from just two or three isolated spots; rather, the river is polluted at thousands of different points along its entire length and breadth. The second challenge involves the coordination among multiple states, including U.P., Bihar, and West Bengal, which complicates efforts to address the issue. Effective interstate cooperation is essential.

He emphasises that in areas like Jajmau, where the leather industry is concentrated, the river is used as a free resource, leading to its excessive exploitation. “Having said that, although it is officially recognised that the chemicals used in leather processing are extremely harmful, the resulting wastewater, mixed with these chemical effluents, is supposed to be adequately treated in septic tanks and other types of tanks before being discharged into the Ganges. However, this rarely occurs due to various reasons, including corruption and the state government’s inability to fund the necessary treatment infrastructure,” says Batabyal.

Satish Sinha, Associate Director of Toxics Link, suggests that the CETP in the Jajmau area needs to be upgraded to treat the maximum amount of effluents. Regular monthly checkups of the CETP plant are crucial. Instead of assigning the responsibility of monitoring treatment plants to the Jal Nigam of UP, cooperative societies could be formed to manage the sewage treatment process.

He also suggests that a chrome recovery plant should be established since most of the tanneries in the Jajmau area are chrome tanneries. This would allow the solutions used to dye the leather to be reused and treated, thereby reducing the harmful effects on the populace.

Banner image: Labourers at work in a leather factory within Unnao’s tannery cluster. Image by Zoya Hussain for Mongabay.

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Kundan Pandey Editor

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Greenhouse Gas EmissionsIndustryPollutionWaterWater PollutionIndiaUttar Pradesh

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