After over a hundred years of almost total dominance it is good that tanners are looking for alternates to chromium. We need relentless research and innovation to bring out the best in our sustainable raw material and to make it perform better in a Cradle to Cradle format. Equally it is great to see older technologies like Dongola and other alum and vegetable processes that got knocked out by chromium being considered again and finding useful roles in certain end uses.
What is disturbing is the introduction of the term “chrome free” and the implication that any leather containing chromium is somehow dangerous or a “bad thing”. In reality tanners know very well that a properly managed chromiuprocess is as good as you are going to get and should pose no issues for individuals or the environment. We know the problems of chromium and after 100 years of mainstream know how to manage them. Not so with nearly all the alternates, perhaps with the exception of titanium.
Go a vegetable route and the quantities used are so great that we do not have enough trees so getting a truly sustainable vegetable tannage is really hard. And with the larger quantities of veg tan used the effluent load is huge and has to be carefully handled. And the organic terminology used is also misleading as it ignores all the lime, sulphide and acids etc used elsewhere in the process and implies a biodegradability that is not true.
Today at Outdoor Friedricshafen Nick Brown of Nikwax and Paramo is holding a press conference, or anti press conference, on green washing. I would like to be there but will be on the lake instead testing his product. He is right in his subject matter. The whole show is feeding on this term “sustainability” yet move just beyond the veneer of some excellent companies and you know you are only being presented with sales slogans and bad science.
Some of the leather concepts such as Meindl have in their fabulous boots using leather from Heinen which can be traced back to the farm (a concept started by Icebreaker with their NZ merino sheep) are really first rate. But as soon as the words “chrome free” or “organic” are applied to leather I hope designers and responsible brands switch off.
They are terms that do the leather industry no credit at all.