Evaluating Suitability of Glutaraldehyde Tanning in Conformity with Physical Properties of Conventional Chrome-Tanned Leather

Leather manufacturing involves a number of unit processes, out of which tanning is the most important in so far as it converts the putrescible hides/skins into non-putrescible leather. In this study, glutaraldehyde has been exploited as a means to reduce the use of basic chromium sulfate for the production of quality shoe upper crust leather. The paper consists in studying the physical properties of aldehyde-tanned leather and chrometanned leather. The aim is to find out the possibility of replacing the wet-blue leather, containing Cr(III) salts, with the glutaraldehyde-tanned wet-white leather. The physical properties of the aldehyde-tanned leather were evaluated, analyzed and compared with the conventional chrome-tanned shoe upper crust leather. Statistical analysis illustrated that the tensile strength, the percentage of elongation, stitch tear strength, Baumann tear strength and grain crack strength of the leather was 211±1 kg/cm2, 38±0.5 %, 89±0.11 kg/cm, 63±0.4 kg/cm and 23±0.4 kg respectively. It was observed that the property of the experimental leather was quite comparable with the conventional chrome-tanned leather and able to meet the requirements of the shoe upper crust leather after re-tanning. The shrinkage temperature of the experimental tanned leather was found to be 87 °C, lower than that of corresponding control, which indicates lesser tanning power of aldehyde. However, the morphology of the aldehyde-tanned leather was quite akin with the conventional leather. This study suggests that using glutaraldehyde in the tanning process in order to minimize the chromium load in the tanning and the re-tanning process during the production of shoe upper crust leather reduces the generation of toxic waste and its impact on the environment

Assessment of the Carbon Footprint and VOCs Emissions Caused by the Manufacturing Process of the Footwear Industry in Bangladesh

Every industry has an impact on the environment, either good or bad, and leather and footwear industries are no exception. For the footwear industry, the main environmental impacts are the releasing of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and solid wastes. The pressure of reducing harm to the environment is coming from both the consumers and the legislation. CO2 and VOCs are hazardous to human health and also trigger serious environment problems, such as ozone layer depletion, offensive odour, photochemical smog, acid rain and many others. Adhesives, finishing products and cleaners contribute to VOCs emissions in the footwear manufacturing industry. VOCs emission may also arise from primers, separating agents, printing inks or finishing pastes. Some most commonly produced VOCs in the footwear manufacturing industry are benzene, toluene, styrene, ethylene, xylene, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, methyl ethyl ketone, chlorobenzene, phenol etc. All of these cause severe health problems in humans and have an adverse effect on the environment. An increasing number of footwear factories adversely affects the environment and human health. One of the largest environmental impacts of shoe industry comes from the manufacturing stages of the shoe’s life cycle. This study was carried out to measure the carbon footprint and VOCs emissions among ten selected footwear factories. The results revealed that the total energy footprint for one pair of shoes is 18.004826 MJ, the water footprint is 8.37167 litres and the carbon footprint is 9.174979 kg CO2 eq. The highest impact in terms of the carbon footprint lies in the shoe manufacturing process with a 5.85109 eq. CO2 (kg). The total VOCs consumption for a fashion shoe is around 36.5 g/pair on average. There should be an initiative taken with the aim of adjusting the choice of methods, materials, machines and the monitoring systems as well as the safety policy for the workers and the environment

Key performance indicators for adopting sustainability practices in footwear supply chains

The footwear industry has contributed notably to different countries’ economic development. Therefore, it needs to focus on operational excellence in order to achieve a sustainable level of development. Achieving sustainability in the footwear industry, however, is a complex task since various issues are involved in the footwear manufacturing process. Currently, in order to see how firms can sustain their place in the competitive global business environment, researchers and practitioners are giving special attention to operational excellence in the footwear manufacturing industry. Operational excellence is a business term that indicates the actual performance of an organization. To make the supply chain agile, resilient, and sustainable, it is imperative that firms incorporate sustainable practices in the footwear industry, and operational excellence can help in this regard. The sustainability of the footwear industry can be examined by using a set of key performance indicators (KPIs). Therefore, identifying and examining the KPIs for adopting sustainable practices in the footwear supply chain is a very important task. There is still a knowledge gap in research on the KPIs for attaining sustainability in the footwear industry. To fill in this knowledge gap, this study contributes to the existing literature by identifying and assessing the KPIs by using a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method named the best-worst method (BWM). This study uses a previous study to identify some relevant KPIs, some of which were included in the assessment process based on footwear industry experts’ feedback. After finalizing the relevant KPIs, BWM was utilized to find the most important KPIs for adopting sustainability practices in the footwear industry’s supply chains. The findings of this study reveal that the KPIs “quality production”, “timely order processing” and “accuracy of moulding” received the first three positions in the rankings we performed. The results of this study will help practitioners, industry experts, and decision-makers to find out a pathway for easily adopting sustainability practices in the footwear supply chains