Photo: Sam-17
Financial challenges
- Salted hides are highly wasteful in transport, material and energy costs
- Salted hides putrefy quickly and up to 5% can be lost during transportation
- Just-In-Time leather manufacture is currently not possible
- Environmental costs involved in disposing of salt can be prohibitive
Environmental challenges
- The current supply chain is an over-intensive user of salt, energy and water.
- Salt causes significant contamination of fresh water supplies and farming land.
- Heavy weight of the salt transported increases fuel usage and carbon footprint.
The current leather supply chain is NOT sustainable
- Tanning is so bad for the environment that developed countries typically outsource to less developed countries.
- Legislation is being considered in China, and has already been passed in India, which together account for 50% of the world’s global tanning capacity, to ban the use of salt.
- Many so called eco-leather are just as harmful to the environment because they are contain plastics.