Identification and evaluation of water pollution from Albanian tanneries

Up to 1990 a new phenomena concerning environment has taken place in our country. Many industrial enterprises were totally or partially closed. But leather tanning and processing factories which were represented by 5 enterprises located from the north to the south in Shkodra, Tirana, Vlora, Korça, Gjirokastra, not only survived but many small tanneries were established during this transition period. The new ones carry out only tanning operations locally (i.e. “wet-blue” leather already chrome-tanned). Leather tanning is carried out using primitive methods and largely manual operations. The reasons of this situation are traditions in heritage from the past, raw material (leather) of good quality and very cheap, lack of respective legislation, standards, monitoring, etc. This trend is reinforced by the fact that all the operations preceding tannage create environmental pollution and is thus accepted with increasing difficulty in the developed countries, because of the specific laws against pollution. The wet-blue leathers are imported into Europe. There are more than 10 tanneries (some of them are working in illegal way) all over Albanian territory, from the north to the south and from the east to the west. Presently, all processing leather factories and tanneries discharge hundred of thousands ton wastewater effluent into water basins. The physical and chemical indicators of tanneries effluent depend from the capacity of production. BOD5 varies at limits of 965–1631 mg O2/L, COD from 6168–11032 m gO2/L, TSS at limits of 1264–9984 mg O2/L total sulphides 21–380 mg O2/L, total chromium 4.75–49.2 mg O2/L, ammonia ions 10–102 mg O2/L. Municipalities damp sites and most frequently riversides are used fo r solid waste disposal. There is no treatment plan neither for waste water nor for solid waste. From all above mentioned the risk of water resources pollution is very evident. This risk is increased keeping in mind Albanian natural physical environment.

(1) The quantitative processing of the data on the analyzed samples shows that the values of the measured parameters exceed many times the relevant domestic and European standards. (2) The data on the analyzed samples demonstrates that 100% of them support the conclusion that tanneries discharges are serious potential pollution sources. (3) Tanneries solid waste and the sludge of the sedimentation tanks (their sludge also is discharged into riverbeds) aggravate the situation. (4) Considering that the production of tanned and finished leather has increased, the discharges of this sector are increased too. (5) The contamination of waters by this sector is not monitored and the only environmental indicator that can be used is the amount of effluents. (6) Regarding its impacts on the environment this sector became one of the priorities. This is due not only to the large amounts of discharges (liquid and solid) but also to the nature of the pollutants and the high costs for their treatment [4,17].