The Project

The Tanning industry in Bangladesh and Vietnam

Leather products are a highly demanded luxury good and most of the western population have at least one leather product in form of shoes, jackets or bag in their closet. But where is our Leather coming from?

While leather is the by product of meat, and rapidly growing world population also demand increases the demand for meat. Supply of leather therefore is not an issue, since higher demand for meat results in increasing supply of cattle and hide. To be able to process the leather further into shoes, clothes and accessorize, leather has to under go a tanning process. This tanning process used to be more present in tanning factories in European countries, however, due to cheap labor in emerging countries, the tanning industry moved decades ago more and more to poor regions with low wage labor.

The cheapest and most efficient method for the tanning industry to process leather is with the usage of harmful chemicals. Eco friendly variations are on the market, in practice however only a small percentage works with these methods, simply because it takes more effort and therefore also is more costly. The consequences of the chemical method are that all chemical waste of the tanning fabrics  end up in the ground water of those regions. Vietnam and Bangladesh are one of the countries with highest number of tanning factories in Asia. Poverty in most rural areas of the countries prohibits the construction of proper waste water treatment plants and proper sanitation facilities.

Our Beyond Leather Co. Foundation supports therefore the implementation of proper waste water treatment plants and sanitation facility with project in cooperation of the World Health Organization.

Great need!

Vietnam and Bangladesh are one of the most beautiful and unique cultures in Asia. It attracts more and more visitors and travelers each year. But they are in great need to fully make use of their potential of their country. Still today less than one fifth of the population in Vietnam and Bangladesh have access to clean ground water. They suffer from the consumption of contaminated ground water with diseases such as Tuberculosis, various kinds of cancer and skin discoloring.