Collaboration Potential for China & Brazil

[Neo]

During the recent ACLE in Shanghai, an afternoon seminar on
Environment Friendly Supplies was put on by ASSINTECAL, the Brazilian
association for companies of components for leather, footwear and
related goods, in partnership with the CLIA.

Introducing the presentations by three Brazilian companies with regard
to environmentally friendly processing, Xu Yong, honorary president of
CLIA, said that China is a leading country in terms of animal
husbandry and has an abundant resource of raw leather. It has also a
strong leather processing capacity. The down stream industries such as
shoe making, leather garments and leather component industries are
also well developed. The leather industry in China has a vast
potential for future development.

Brazil is the largest country in Latin America and is also among the
top leather producing countries in the world. The leather chemical
industry in Brazil has been developing rapidly in recent years. It has
won a great reputation for excellent quality, stable performance and
awareness of environmental protection.

At present, the tanning industry in China is paying more attention to
the saving of energy, the reduction of discharge and clean production.
It has a vast demand for environment friendly chemical materials with
excellent quality, reasonable price and satisfactory after sales
service. Today's seminar will serve as an ideal platform to promote
the mutual understanding of enterprises in Brazil and China and
achieve the complementarity of their respective advantages and their
co-development.

Osmar Graf, director, Tanac, introduced Tanfloc, their coagulant/
flocculant agent for waste treatment which is of essentially vegetable
origin. They describe it as nature taking care of nature. It is an
organic polymer, cationic, with low molecular weight and is derived
from renewable resources: black acacia bark extracts - Acacia mearnsii
- mimosa forests.

Tanac export manager Paulo Costa said that a 20-40% rise in trade
effluent costs was expected over the next five years. This is due to
the need to comply with ever increasing severity in regulations.

Noko Quimica's Ricardo Perez, director, detailed his company's compact
retanning system saying compact systems promote lower environmental
impact and better productivity. He claimed that with compact retanning
processes a medium sized tannery (500 sq m/month) could reduce their
water consumption by 85%.

He gave, as an example, one tannery producing 1 million ft2/month
which changed from conventional to compact tanning and reduced water
consumption from 1,350,000 litres to 200,000 litres. There was also an
appreciable reduction in time, 420 minutes down to 240 with three
hours saved per drum.

The two speakers from Seta, Morgana Carvalho and Marcio C R Kreibich,
outlined two new technologies from their company. The compact LETS
system applied to limed pelts allows chrome tanning to be carried out
without basification, leading to less environmental impact. Seta say
this is a safe and simple process which provides one product for
pickling and deliming.

Their second product, Acqua Pol is a flocculant for wastewater
treatment after modified tannins are used.