News Release from the IULTCS. IUE 12 – Guidelines for Minimum Environmental Standards Announced by IULTCS
3 July 2017
In view of ever increasing social pressures, no tanner can afford to be unfamiliar with the main issues and principles of environmental protection pertaining to tannery operations. Among these, preventing pollution and promoting cleaner leather processing remain a priority. Yet, despite all preventive measures, there is still an amount of the pollution load to be dealt with by the end-of-pipe methods.
The International Union of Environment Commission (IUE) is comprised of global experts from around 30 countries who meet under the umbrella of the International Union of Leather Technologists and Chemists (IULTCS) to develop technical guidelines for environmental protection aspects for the world leather industry based on the field developments and experiences in different countries. The IUE Environment documents consist of 12 chapters starting with “IUE 1 – Recommendations on Cleaner Technologies for Leather Production” and ending with the newly launched “IUE 12 – Guidelines for Minimum Environmental Standards”
The purpose of this document is to give tanners or tannery managers guidelines for the Minimum Acceptable Environmental Standards (MAES). This IUE document is based on the environmental performances, not on the means required to achieve these performances. Therefore, tanners retain the freedom to choose which options they implement among prevention, clean technologies, end-of-pipe treatment, new and innovative solutions. The objective is to protect the environment and nearby residents on a short term approach, so the guidelines include both on-site and off-site (waste and wastewater) treatments. This document does not refer to any national regulations and therefore the guidelines can be used in any country.
The Guidelines can be downloaded from:
http://www.iultcs.org/pdf/IUE_12-2017_Guidelines-for-minimum-environmental-standards_final.pdf