Possible steps to follow for filling the gap between requirements and the real condition in tanneries

The tannery industry, as one of most important industrial activities, faced more dilemmas at the fall of communistic era: - Can the branch keep a leading position for the exported products at the national level, under a de-centralized system? - Can the industry comply with the new, more stringent environmental legislation? - How far is this industrial branch from the European BAT/BATNEC? Facing a completely new perspective for their development, many industrial units had a limited margin for manoeuvre and those not enough flexible had to shut down. “Economic survival whatever the price” has been the mantra for some good years. The newly presented EU legislation has been raising many difficult and complex problems for the units that managed to survive that they need to prioritize their improvement actions. Combining Cleaner Production (CP) measures with laboratory research for technology upgrades can have a synergistic effect for improving environmental performance and decrease resource consumption. The effects were evaluated for more experimented measures, such as better process control, toxics use reduction, and source separation of wastes. The results demonstrate that real improvements of environmental performance can be achieved and the indicators that were utilized have values that are comparable with those published for “advanced” processes practiced in EU.