New environmental service to the global leather industry

W2O Environment Ltd, a UK-based consultancy, offer independent environmental engineering, consulting and training for the leather industry worldwide. The company have ten years' experience in environmental technologies in the leather industry and offer a complete environmental assessment for tanneries, including the areas of leather processing and effluent treatment. Within the environmental audits, they examine factory operations, looking at critical areas of process control in the tannery and opportunities for cost reduction and/or for implementing cleaner technologies. They review the effluent treatment facilities regarding wastewater concentrations, flow rates, retention times and operation regime as well as odour control and sludge handling and implement monitoring and environmental quality systems ensuring consistent pollution control. The programme of W2O Environment consists of a comprehensive audit and gives technical assistance to current leather process and effluent treatment plant operations and serves as a basis to develop a strategy for future effluent treatment and waste management to meet international standards and local regulations. Following the initial auditing, they offer further support with design and layout of effluent treatment plants, upgrading and process design of novel and highly-efficient effluent treatment and water recycling plants. Key areas of activity include the development of novel recycling technologies using membrane bioreactor and nanofiltration/reverse osmosis technology to provide for high-quality water recycling. Prior to implementation, they test the recycling technologies with pilot plants at the tanneries to evaluate the technical feasibility and investment and operation costs, to obtain the design basis for industrial scale systems. On successful completion of the test, they assist during implementation, conduct commissioning and start-up of the plant and train the operators. W2O Environment Ltd are keen to support the leather industry with state-of-the-art cleaner and ecologically sound technologies and aim to reduce pollution and meet today's stringent consumer demands for quality and environmentally-friendly production. For further information, visit: [http://www.w2o.environment.net]