Chapter 12 - Biotechnological approaches towards treatment and recycling of wastewater from tanneries and leather industry

Abstract

Tannery industry is known to use up substantially high quantities of water producing huge volumes of enormously polluted effluent after processing of leather. Wastewater generated from tannery industry is a prime environmental pollutant amidst diverse variants of wastewater produced from different industries. Tannery industries use heavy metals for leather production; thus tannery wastewaters are extremely complex and are characterized by high loads of chromium, cadmium, arsenic, copper, manganese, sulfates, sulfides, and various organic, inorganic and nitrogenous compounds in addition to various suspended and dissolved solids. Due to the lack of well-defined effluent treatment plants and environment management policies and schemes; a great majority of tannery industry discharge their raw waste into open environment. Thus to overcome the adverse effects of these life-endangering hazardous wastes; simpler, cost-effective, efficient, and environmentally friendly approaches are required for wastewater treatment along with well-classified environment-management schemes. This chapter thus would provide an insight into various biotechnological approaches for the treatment and recycling of wastewater from tannery industry.