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These terrifying
tanneries
Wondirad Seifu,
January, 31. 2009, The Reporter
A decade ago I had the opportunity to visit some of our
tanneries. At the time they were busy emulating the United Nations
Industrial Development Organization’s (UNIDO's) fancy and costly waste
water treatment plant model. Wishing to see the end result, I recently went
to test their quality of waste. It is terrible.
Among the industrial establishments in the country,
tanneries are not only pollutants but also technically inefficient in terms
of resource utilization. Since the advent of the leather-making process in
primordial times, tanneries have been creeping along river banks because
they need quite a lot of water. For example, a single skin needs water
amounting to 15-20 times its weight until it assumes its leathery look.
It also requires various chemicals up to 30 percent of its weight. Here
comes the danger: tanneries dispose of 95 percent of the water and about 75
percent of the chemicals. Given the annual tanneries' consumption of raw
hides and skins, about 18 million pieces with an average weight of a
kilogram, then you can figure out easily the amount of their toxic-laden
discharge to the environment.
Thanks to the advent of the technology, this provides them with a solution
that enables them to neutralize or reverse their waste water. That is what
also UNIDO and ISO 14000 environmental management system (EMS) proponents
have been hailing since environmental friendly technology was becoming a
developmental issue. Although it was too late in coming, recently the Prime
Minister had dully acknowledged the global warming problem.
Some of the tanneries have embraced such concern too and even gone to
commission waste water treatment plant and grab ISO 14000 EMS certificates.
The former had required heavy structure and the latter called for extensive
paperwork along with textbook prescriptions.
Admittedly, both took a significant amount of hard currency. However,
despite such commitments, nothing comes to prove their purpose, except for the
emergence of the free riders. It is a headache.
I needed not knock at their door to know whether or not those tanneries
with waste water treatment plant and ISO 1400 EMS
certificates have delivered on their promise. Instead, I went to their
nearby streams where I easily spotted a channel that discharged one of the
tannery's waste water into the river.
I filled a small can with the waste water and put a tiny
insect into it. First the insect performed the dance of death vigorously,
gravitated gradually towards the centre of the can and then gave up the
"ghost". Does this have any implications for human beings? Time
is bound to be the final arbiter of things to come.
llllll
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