Waste and 3R’s in Footwear and Leather Sectors

Abstract

In every aspect of human life, there are many various wanted and unwanted materials manufactured or generated. Then later, they are discarded in the environment just because they are considered as waste. This chapter deals with the various processes that are involved in waste generation from the footwear and leather industry sectors. It also enlists the most conventional types of wastes generated from the footwear manufacturing plant and leather industry. The waste generated can be from a specific product or a group of products, and can also be from a particular production technology applied or from the whole production industry. The nature of the wastes are produced daily mostly dependable on the manufacturing process and the materials and methods used for footwear production. Leather is majorly consumed by the footwear sector, which is around 60–65%. Footwear industries are producing the most significant quantity of leather wastes such as leather trimmings, shavings and leather dust. In today’s world, there are more than 21 billion pairs of footwear manufactured annually globally. This creates a humungous amount of waste generation from footwear and leather sectors. The maximum percentage of footwear waste is generated from the post-consumer footwear waste, i.e. end of life of footwear which mainly goes into the landfills. In this chapter, the waste hierarchy from the footwear and leather industry is discussed and how it can be implemented to reduce, reuse and recycle the wastes that are generated from these footwear and leather sectors.