Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the oxidative unhairing process by hydrogen peroxide

The ever increasing attention to the environmental impact of the process industries imposes an obligation to constantly improve the global sustainability of the leather tanning process. Among the numerous phases of the tanning process, the beamhouse accounts for most of the total polluting charge, due to the use of sodium sulfide and lime during the manufacturing process of hides. Hence, the authors have recently developed an alternative unhairing process that eliminates the use of sulfides. The actual reduction of the environmental impact of this process, in relation with the traditional one, was evaluated performing a Life Cycle Assesment (LCA) using SimaPro 6, one of the most used software for LCA analysis. Environmental impacts were finally rated using "EDIP 97" assessing methodology. Since impact assessment methodologies were mainly developed for the manufacturing field, EDIP 97 was slightly modified and adapted to fit with the tannery industry.