Mitigating Tannery Pollution in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia

Anil Hira, Henrique Pacini, Kweku Attafuah-Wadee, Mehak Sikander, Richard Oruko and Amanda Dinan
Additional contact information
Anil Hira: Simon Fraser University
Henrique Pacini: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Kweku Attafuah-Wadee: Resources Transformation Ghana
Mehak Sikander: World Wide Fund for Nature Pakistan
Richard Oruko: The Animal Health and Industry Training Institute (AHITI)
Amanda Dinan: SouthSouthNorth

Journal of Developing Societies, 2022, vol. 38, issue 3, 360-383

Abstract: The global leather market is worth more than $270 billion annually, and provides an important and accessible source of manufacturing exports for countries in the Global South. Leather is the source for a range of apparel items, including handbags, belts, shoes, wallets, gloves, and various other products, such as furniture, car seats, and luggage. Behind all leather goods is the tannery industry, with much of the raw materials processing located in the Global South (Lund-Thomsen, 2009, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 90, p. 57). Unlike most synthetic fibers, which are derived from plastics and associated with the petrochemical industry, leather has the potential for a comparatively lighter footprint because it is based on natural and renewable materials not associated with the carbon emissions of fossil fuels. However, leather has suffered from various concerns, including animal rights and toxic effluents. It is ranked as the fourth most dangerous global industry to human health, with many tanneries in the Global South lacking basic protection for the workers and leaching toxic chromium into rivers (Green Cross and Pure Earth, 2016, World’s worst pollution problems: The toxics beneath our feet). This article explores the prospects for reducing the environmental footprint of tanneries in the Global South, focusing on the Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution (SMEP) program, a series of projects in South Asia (SA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that explore ways to reduce manufacturing pollution. The article lays out a series of technical and managerial interventions that would vastly reduce the negative impacts on human health and the natural environment.

Keywords: Leather; tanneries; environment; pollution; wastewater; treatment; Bangladesh; Ethiopia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0169796X221104856 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jodeso:v:38:y:2022:i:3:p:360-383

DOI: 10.1177/0169796X221104856

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Developing Societies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().