Hoof to Hide

The Social and Environmental

Impacts of Leather Production
 Introduction
• This Presentation focuses on Leather.
• It is designed to take you through the
cradle to grave lifecycle of leather, paying
particular attention to the social,
environmental, and public health impacts
of the processes associated with its origins
on the animal through its preparation for
use by the consumer.

Leather 2
• We start by looking at the factory farm
processes, the slaughtering of the
animals, the tanning of the skins. finally,
their disposal when they are no longer
desirable
• Throughout this report comparisons will be
drawn between developed and developing
nations. These comparisons will help
illustrate the social and environmental
injustices imposed upon developing
nations by the developed ones through
consumptive demand for product.
Leather 3
• The leather industry exists on many different
levels throughout the world. In the United
States, the industry is probably the highest
quality in terms of working conditions and
environmental concerns, but by no means ideal.
• The industry is not growing, consequently there
is no expansion, no people being dislocated,
only the shift of one type of production to
another.
• The biggest market in the U.S. for leather is the
auto industry

Leather 4
 The Problem
• The steps in producing and tanning animal skins
starting in the corral and ending at the sales
counter as finished goods is a long process that
leaves its effects on individuals and communities
world wide.
– For some there is economic gain.
• Wages to workers
• Profits to owners and investors who are involved in livestock
farming and the manufacture, distribution, and retail of
leather products.
– For others there is the disease that comes from
exposure.
• Directly working in the tanning process.
• Using water and produce contaminated with by-products
from factory feedlots, slaughterhouses, and tanneries.

Leather 5
 Scope of Report
• Feedlots, slaughterhouses, and tanneries
in the U.S., Thailand, Viet Nam, India, and
Bangladesh will be cited.
– Big business is not an assurance of the
practice of sound environmental justice
principles.
– Small businesses in developing countries can
be deadly to those who cling to their ways of
making a living in the leather industry.
Leather 6
 Scope (Cont.)

• Companies have made public

stands against the inhumane
slaughter of animals, but are
not so quick to take the same
stand and boycott a facility for
its work conditions or its
disregard of the environment
and the effects that these
behaviors have on the workers
and residents in the vicinity of
the production site.

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How did leather come into being?
• When leather was a protective skin, used
to keep people warm or protect them from
the elements, it was used in balance with
the environment and the processes used
in tanning weren’t lethal. The skins came
from a local producer. The concept was
smaller, and from the impression given by
the research, kinder and gentler to the
animals as well as humans. The quantity
of leather produced was much lower, and
probably the population owned fewer, if
any, leather garments or sat on leather
upholstered seats.
Leather 8
• Only after the market responded to the
vanity of consumers did the development
of different processes affect the health and
well being of industry workers and
residents near feedlots and tanneries.
The Sierra Club Rap Sheet points out that
in the current market, (referring to beef for
food), because of demand, there would
never be a kinder gentler way and that the
agricultural factories were here to stay.
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• The Sierra Club Rap Sheet reads like a
“who’s who” of environmental violators in
the slaughterhouse and meat packing
industries within the United States.
Locations ranging from the Midwest,
(Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska), to the South,
(Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas), are home
to slaughterhouses that have been found
to be guilty of contaminating their natural
environments.
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• Tanneries around the
world, as cited by
various sources in
this report, will be
shown as examples
of workplaces that
contaminate to their
environments as well
as expose their
workers to hazardous
conditions.
Leather 11
 In some parts of the world, people
are dying to get into the business.
• An anonymous article in the African News
describes a situation where the population of
Namibia is asking their government to allow the
slaughtering of cattle, which the government is
cautious about because of the lack of facilities.
Namibia is looking to expand its capacity to
slaughter its own cattle in order to avoid
exporting “on the hoof.” The problem is that they
don’t have sufficient slaughterhouses and
tanneries to process their livestock.
Leather 12
• The government of Namibia is concerned
that lack of appropriate facilities will lead to
conditions similar to those in Bangladesh
and India, (described elsewhere in this
report), where health and environmental
hazards have gotten out of control by
spreading pollution and disease. The
government should receive accolades for
not jumping at an economic incentive that
jeopardizes the health of its citizens and
their future generations.

Leather 13
 Even more people dying to get in.
• The communities of Tangra and Tiljala in India
were protesting in 2002 the proposed closing of
their tanneries to benefit a larger production
facility that would put them out of work (Niyogi, Novemer
23, 2002). This situation mimics the post civil was
Slaughterhouse Cases where the authorities
removed economic opportunity from the
disenfranchised for the benefit of the more
powerful business owner. Again, this points to a
situation where people are fighting for an
opportunity to work in a lethal industry.
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 Thank the “Untouchables” for the
cheap labor.
• The lowest members of the caste system, known
as the “untouchables,” make up the workforce of
the Indian leather industry.
• The caste system does not allow them to work
their way up or out of the oppressed and
disenfranchised conditions they’re born into.
• Their low status condemns them to lifelong
exposure to numerous toxins and unsafe work
conditions which are detrimental to their health
and the health of subsequent generations
(Srivastava, August 23, 2001).

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 Women in the workforce
• 60% of the 2.5 million workers who make
up the Indian leather industry labor force
are women. Many of themn are the single
wage earner in the family(Srivstava, August 23, 2001).

Leather 16
 Animals First
• Ironically, the plight of
these workers was
brought to the attention
of the general public
through the efforts of
People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals
(PETA), who organized
a boycott by large
domestic and foreign
manufacturers who use
Indian leather in their
products. The focus of
the boycott was the cruel
treatment of the animals
(Srivastava, august 23, 2001) .

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• Developed nations were
more readily moved into
action by the pleas of
animal rights activists
than by the needs of
those who produce their
luxury goods.
• The emotional appeal of
leather industry workers
suffering doesn’t always
tug at the heartstrings of
consumers.

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• Demand for leather goods
forces unfair labor practices.
The tannery that produces
the best product in
Hazaribagh, Bangladesh is
the one staffed by children
(Skeem, October 3, 2002).
• The implications of workers’
lifelong exposure to the
tanning process in a country
with no safety standards
would be unthinkable to most
consumers in developed
counties. The problem is
most consumers aren’t aware
of these conditions.
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 A Tale of Two Slums
• One slum, in Seoul, has developed on the
site of a former slaughterhouse, pointing
out the the types of conditions in which the
poor in developing nations are forced to
live.

Leather 20
• The other slum in Bangkok is inhabited by
Christians who slaughter pigs (which is not
allowed by the Buddhist population).
There is a market for these animals and
their skins, and consequently, the poorest
segment of the economy is forced to
slaughter animals in an inappropriate
facitlity (probably their living quarters) in
order to survive.
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• These two situations
describe the
degrading living
conditions of people
who have no means
or network of support
to rise above their
conditions (Swift, R. January,
1995).

Leather 22
 What happens to workers in a
developing country when a large
manufacturer leaves?
• Once an industry pulls out, there is not much
employment hope for those left behind,
particularly if they’ve suffered an occupational
injury. In 2002, Reebok pulled out of Viet Nam.
An article in Footwear News, (Oct. 14, 2002)
expressed concern for workers in a country with
a lack of ability to develop safe standards for its
workers (Ellis, Oct 14,2002).
Leather 23
• The author cites high incidents of
“musculoskeletal and neurobehavioral
disorders in a large percentage (not
specified) of the workers due to repetitive
movement and exposure to chemical
solvents” (Ellis, Oct 14,2002). China and Viet Nam
are cited as high risk countries with regard
to worker welfare. Do these workers end
up in other high risk industries when an
American manufacturer pulls out?
Leather 24
• In some cases (such as this one involving
Reebok), American manufacturers make up a
majority of the production demands of some of
these developing nations, thereby jeopardizing
the livelihoods and the health of a large segment
of the population.
• Ellis points out that when a country goes from a
dictatorship to a democracy; the American
companies usually pull out, leaving behind a
physically injured and unemployed workforce for
which the company shares no liability.
• Viet Nam is cited as a country targeted by the
World Bank to develop and improve its footwear
industry (Ellis, Oct 14,2002).

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 What happens when the workers
leave?
• The Handbook of Texas gives a history of
the leather industry in the state and points
to its decline due to reduced demand for
Western apparel and the mechanization of
the industry. Two centers, Gainsville and
Yoakum, had the larges thriving leather
tanning and manufacturing businesses in
the state during the 1960’s

Leather 26
 Where’d they go?
• The effects these businesses had on their
workers and the community at large should be
evident, however the migration of a workforce
that occurs when an industry experiences a
downturn makes it difficult to trace the well being
of these people with regard to their economic
status and health conditions. There’s a high
probability based upon the locations o these
facilities that the majority of the workforce was
Latino.
Leather 27
• Because of the low labor costs in places
like China, the Philippines, and India, the
leather demand remains high due to the
reduced price of tanning the skins.
• India is cited as one of the greatest
violators of workers rights and the
environment within the leather industry
(Srivastava, August 23, 2001).

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What are the effects on the
local ecosystems where
production takes place?
• When we use a leather product we
probably don’t feel any injustice or
immediate and direct environmental effect
from product use. The effects,
unfortunately are far more reaching than
most of us realize.
• American manufacturers are the largest
consumers of leather, and more
specifically, leather from India (Vartan, Sept/Oct
2002) Note: recent boycotts of Indian leather by American
Manufacturers might have changed this situation.

Leather 30
 Factory Farms

– U.S. beef, chicken, and pig industries produce

291,000,000,000 lbs of manure annually.
– This waste is normally held in open lagoons.
– In some cases, it is diluted and sprayed onto
farm land.

Leather 31
 Water Pollution
– Animal waste is one of the largest uncontrolled
sources of water pollution in the U.S. (Swift, M. November 25,
2002)
– The seepage from the lagoons as well as run-off from
the sprayed land ends up in drinking water.
• Sierra Club reports growth hormones, antibiotics, ammonia,
pathogens, and pesticides enter the water supply via animal
waste.
• The cattle industry consumed 20 million pounds of chemicals
at a value of 4.2 billion dollars in the year 2000.
– Contamination of crops from spraying lagoon water
waste as fertilizer.

Leather 32
• Our resources in the U.S. are not immune to
careless accidents by private industry.
• One example from many is Cargill Pork, Inc. The
company was cited for contaminating the water
in the Loutre River in Missouri with animal waste
products. (Becker, E. August 13, 2002)
– Becker does explain that Cargill cooperated with
inspectors, cleaned up the affected waterway, and
shut down the offending operation. These measures
help reduce the possibility of future accidents, but
unfortunately do not help those exposed to the waste
from the first contamination.
Leather 33
 Factory Farms (Cont.)

– Other environmental degradations from

factory farming include “trees cleared to
create pastureland, vast quantities of
water are used, and feedlot and dairy
farm runoff create a major source of
water polution” (peta.org) .
– “Huge amounts of fossil fuels are
consumed in livestock
production”(peta.org).
• “By Contrast, plastic wearables
account for only a fraction of 1
percent of the petroleum used in the
U.S” (peta.org)

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 • High quantities of water
required. (peta.org)
– Air pollution
• Hydrogen sulfide
produced from hog
farms (Sierra Club Rap
Sheet).

Leather 35
 Slaughterhouses
• The slaughtering of animals has
traditionally been regarded at the low end
of the socio-economic scale. This was
reinforced in America in the late 19th
century with the Slaughterhouse Cases.
The Institute for Justice web site is one of
many resources containing articles
describing these legal decisions.

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• “…Several parishes (counties) in eastern
Louisiana wanted to move all meat and
butchering slaughter house activities to a
location outside the city limits. In so doing, the
local government provided the Crescent City
Live-stock Landing & Slaughter-house Company
a 25 year monopoly to monitor and oversee all
slaughter house operations. This monopoly
effectively put all butchers in the area out of
work, thus depriving these people of the right to
work” (Institute for Justice. 1998, May).

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• The decisions on these cases
undid the work of the 14th
amendment. I chose this
reference because it reinforces
the negative economic effects
on a particular segment of the
society whose first employment
and business opportunity was
in a dirty industry. That
segment was the newly freed
slaves trying to get into the
butchering industry in New
Orleans. These cases lay the
groundwork of racial injustice
within the leather industry.
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Leather Manufactuing/Tanning

– High energy consumption

• “On the basis of quantity
of energy consumed per
unit of product produced,
the leather-manufacturing
industry would be
categorized with the
aluminum, paper, steel,
cement, and petroleum-
manufacturing industries
as a gross consumer of
energy” (Kirk-Othmer
Encyclopedia of Chemical
Technology)

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 Tanning
• The tanning process is the part of the sequence
that exposes workers to contaminants and in
developing countries is a lethal trade. Tanning
was originally fairly harmless until the turn of the
century when demand for leather went up and
mineral saltd, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives,
and cyanide based oils and dyes were
introduced to speed up the process and allow for
varied finish treatments to meet an expanding
market.
Leather 40
• The pre-1900 tanning process involved air
or salt drying of the animal skin, which was
then tanned with vegetable tannins or oils.

Leather 41
 Tanning Methods
• Too help acquaint you with the process,
two methods are described, taken directly
from their web sites. The first, an
environmentally friendly but very archaic
method. The second, a process used to
produce first quality leather for high end
products.

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 Environmentally Friendly Tanning
• The Lewis and Clark Expedition spent a lot of time preparing animal skins --
turning hides into leather for making shirts, trousers, and moccasins.

• The first priority is to remove the animal skin as soon as possible after it's
been killed. Then once the skin is off the flesh and hair have to be removed.
The best way to do that is to stretch the hide.

• A sharp scraping tool is used to get the skin as thin as possible. This way
the hide will tan better and be more supple. Scraping usually takes the most
time in tanning and you have to be careful not to cut through the hide. When
the skin turns white or light brown, the scraping is done.

• And now we have a raw hide -- which has uses all of its own, like making
knife sheaves or containers called parfleches. But to make clothing, you
need to continue tanning.

• Take the hide off the frame and soak it in water -- one to seven days,
depending upon how large the hide is. This turns the rawhide back into skin
and makes it more receptive to the tanning solution. Now comes tanning,
which refers to making the skin permanently soft. http://www.nps.gov/focl/tanning.htm

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• Many of the explorers already knew how to tan using tannic acid from the hardwood
trees of the east. Since there were no hardwood trees on the Plains, the explorers
probably learned brain tanning from the Mandan Indians.
•
• This means to take the animal's brains; smash it up and boil it in water to make a
paste. After boiling, allow the mushy solution to cool long enough to smear onto the
hide. Fold or roll the hide in the brain solution and let it sit overnight to soak. The rule
of thumb is that each animal has enough brains to tan its own hide. By the next day,
the brains should be completely soaked into the skin.

• Now comes the most laborious part -- stretching the hide until it becomes completely
dry. This must be done by hand. If you stop before it is absolutely dry it will stiffen up
and then it will have to be retanned all over again.
•
• Finally, the hide is smoked over a very smoky but not hot fire. This is an all day job
and it is done until the entire skin has a nice, brownish color. The smoking
permanently preserves the skin so that it can get wet and not stiffen up.
•
• And now you have a completely brain-tanned elk hide -- ready to be made into
clothing.

http://www.nps.gov/focl/tanning.htm

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 Tanning process from a developed
country (Germany)
• 1. Warehousing and sorting
In the raw material area the
skins are preserved in salt,
stored in controlled cool rooms
and before processing,
presorted for quality and
weight.
•  
•  2. Soaking
The skin is soaked to remove
dirt and salt.
•   
• 3. De-Fleshing
During this process tissue,
flesh and fat remnants are
removed by a roller mounted
knife
http://www.euroleather.com/cotance/images/bild-abwelken.jpg

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•  4. Liming
By adding lime and sulphur
compound the hair is removed
from the skin.
 
• 5. Bating, pickling, tanning
During bating and pickling the
skins are treated with acid and
salt in preparation for tanning.
During tanning the skin fibres
absorb the tanning agents.
That's when the skin becomes
leather. 

• 6. Samming
During this process water is
removed.
http://www.euroleather.com/cotance/images/bild-abwelken.jpg

Leather 46
• 7. Splitting
In order to achieve an even
specified thickness the leather is
reduced in substance. The
resulting split-leather can than be
processed further as suede. 

• 8. Skiving
The grain leather is brought to an
even thickness. Irregularities are
removed from the reverse side
and the leather is separated into
colour-batches.

• 9. Sorting
The leather is sorted into various
quality grades.

http://www.euroleather.com/cotance/images/bild-abwelken.jpg
Leather 47
• 10. Neutralising, filling out, dyeing
and greasing
The acid resulting from the tanning
process is neutralized. Dyeing than
takes place, where appropriate with
anilin-dye-stuffs. The greasing
procedure will finally achieve the
correct softness.
•  
• 11. Drying
Two methods are used to dry leather.
The vacuum process during which
moisture is removed by suction and
the hanging process, when leather is
hung and taken through ovens.
•  
• 12. Staking
Following drying the leather is
mechanically staked in order to soften
it. Further processes take place in
preparation for finishing.

http://www.euroleather.com/cotance/images/bild-abwelken.jpg

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• 13. Finishing
Here the leather is given its
final surface treatment and
look. Through processes of
base coat, colouring,
embossing, ironing the leather
becomes, depending on the
demands of fashion, matt or
shiny, two-tone or uni-
coloured, smooth or grained.
The art of finishing lies in
working in wafer-thin layers
without disturbing the natural
look of the leather and its
characteristics such as
suppleness and breathability.

http://www.euroleather.com/cotance/images/bild-abwelken.jpg

Leather 49
 Tanning in Bangladesh
• The following quote describes the waste
problems associated with tanning in a
developing country. “
– “The setting for the Nur Bhai tannery is a wasteland
where some 7.70 million liters of untreated liquid
waste and 88 metric tons of untreated solid waste are
dumped each day. The problems are obvious from
the heaps of leather cuttings, fat, flesh and hair, from
the nauseating stench of blood, rotting flesh, and
chemicals, and from the acid corrosion on the nearby
tin roofs.” http://www.asiafoundation.org/ngobpweb/cg_cases.htm

Leather 50
 Where the waste goes.

• Most tanneries simply dump decaying flesh

waste – 170 kg a day at Nur Bhai – outside to
rot. The water, some 40 to 50 liters for each kilo
of hide, is poured down a drain or onto the
ground. The effluent carries putrid rotting flesh,
blood and skin, as well as toxic chemicals – salt,
alkali, sulfuric acid, bleach, dyes, and formic acid
– straight into the ground, or through pipes to a
low area to the west, where they seep into the
soil of the surrounding
http://www.asiafoundation.org/ngobpweb/cg_cases.htm

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 Health Problems
• There are many problems associated with
feedlot wastes and the affects on those
who come in contact with their pollution.
• Researchers are trying to link the growth
hormones used in animals with an
increase in breast cancer in wormen (Swift, M.
November 25, 2002).

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• You don’t have to work in
the industry or live close
to a factory farm to be
affected by the
contamination.
• In Milwaukee in 1993,
contamination of the
drinking water was linked
to 100 deaths and
400,000 illnesses. One
of the contaminants in the
water supply was
identified as cow manure
which seeped in from a
waste lagoon (Sierra Club Rap
Sheet).

Leather 53
• Another example is the case of the day
care operator in Minnesota, 1995, who
was asked to remove the children from her
facility because they were suffering from
nausea, diarrhea, headaches, and other
symptoms of hydrogen sulfide poisoning.
• The cause was the hydrogen sulfide in the
air that was generated by the hog farm,
about a mile upwind from the day care
center (Sierra Club Rap Sheet).
Leather 54
 Slaughterhouse work: bad for the
body and the mind
• Slaughterhouse, by Gail
A. Eisnitz is an expose of
the livestock slaughtering
industry and deals mainly
with the inhumane
treatment animals.
Several passages deal
with the workers’
conditions, illnesses, and
health affecting pollutants
from the industry. (goveg.com)

Leather 55
 Emotional Effects on Workers
• There was no mention of race
or gender: however the
following quote helps illustrate
the plight suffered by those in
the slaughtering trade. The
passage relates the violence of
the work place to the potential
for violence in the home:
• “Working in a slaughterhouse
will dull one’s sense of
compassion toward both
animals and people, including
loved ones” (Eisnitz, 76).

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 A Dangerous Industry
• “…With nearly thirty-six
injuries or illnesses for
every one hundred
workers, meat packing is
the most dangerous
industry in the United
States. In fact, a worker’s
chances of suffering an
injury or an illness in a
meat plant are six times
greater than if that same
person worked in a coal
mind” (Eisnitz, 271).

Leather 57
Health Hazards in the Tanneries
• One of the worst examples of social and
environmental injustice within the tanning
industry occurs in Bangladesh. The
reference article is quoted directly:

Leather 58
• Working conditions in tanneries are also said to expose workers to
health hazards. A survey of 15,000 tannery workers by the non-
governmental Society for Environment and Human Development in
November 1999 found that more than half of them suffer from
ulcers, nearly a third pick up skin diseases, more than a tenth suffer
from rheumatic fever and nearly a fifth have jaundice. Other health
complaints of leather factory workers include dizziness, headaches,
weakness, abdominal pain and eye problems.
According to Mohammad Hasan Ali, assistant director of Health in
the Health Ministry, liquid waste and leather dust are the main
cause of diseases found among tanners who work without proper
footwear, gloves and masks. ''I don't like working in a leather
factory, but I have to do this to support my large family,'' says 38-
year-old Shahab, an employee at a tannery for the past decade.
The health risks are even more serious for child laborers who make
up a large number of the industry's workforces, despite a legal ban
on factories hiring children below the age of 14. A United Nations
Children's Fund report said that more than a fifth of workers of the
nation's tanning industry are below 15 years old (Islam, 2000).

Leather 59
 U.S. Health Hazards
• Even in the U.S., people who work in or live near
tanneries are dying from cancer caused by
exposure to toxic chemicals used to process and
dye the leather. The Centers for disease Control
and Prevention found that the incidence of
leukemia among residents near one tannery in
Kentucky was five times the U.S. average.
• According to a New York State Department of
Health study, more than half of all testicular
cancer victims work in tanneries
Leather 60
 The choices we make
• Wearing a leather jacket, owning and
using leather furniture, or riding in a auto
with leather upholstery might not
immediately affect our health and well
being, however, collectively our choices
have serious implications on the people
who live near or work in the feedlots and
tanneries.

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 How Consumers Learn About
Leather
• The public learns
about all the desirable
qualities of this
product , but none of
the consequences of
its use.
Marketing creates a
demand for a product
that is capable of
generating a profit.
Leather 62
– Leather upholstery in an auto is
one of several features that
allows the manufacturer to
upgrade the description of an
automobile to luxurious.
– A demand is created that
seduces consumers into debt for
leather products which generally
cost much more than their fabric
equivalents.
– Leather is much more
appropriate as footwear and
other types of protective clothing
than it is as shirts, pants, or
dresses, where its direct contact
with the skin causes the finish to
wear prematurely and force the
need for commercial cleaning
which is almost as lethal as the
tanning process.

Leather 63
 Solutions?
• The remedies of the social and
environmental injustices are as varied and
in some cases as obscure as the victims.
• In the United States, governing agencies
supposedly regulate and watch over the
processes involved. The USDA watches
over slaughter houses.

Leather 64
 Fox in the henhouse
• Two resources pointed to a disturbing fact.
• All the top administrators in the agencies
relevant to meat packing and slaughtering from
the Reagan era forward are from the private
sector of the livestock industry (Sierra Club Rap Sheet)
(Becker, E. August 13, 2002).
• A farm bill is being considered that would
provide assistance to factory farms for the clean-
up of their animal wastewater(Becker, E, August 13, 2002).
It looks like the factory farm industry is
encouraging a business partnership with us
taxpayers. They sell the goods, we pay for the
clean-up.

Leather 65
 Greening of the process
• Most tanners in the U.S. claim that their
processes are “biodegradable.” The
PETA organization refers to the EPA’s
determination that all wastes containing
chromium (which accounts for 95% of the
leather tanned in the United States) are
classified as hazardous wastes. The
process of tanning leather stabilizes the
proteins and stops the biodegradable
process.
Leather 66
• The Asia foundation is working with the
governments of Asian countries in an
effort to improve the conditions of the
industry with regard to the workers and the
environment. Their efforts is much more
diplomatic in nature than the efforts of
PETA, however PETA, through its “soap
boxing” seems to be more effective by
aiming right for the pocket books of the
industry.
Leather 67
• The Asia Foundation claims success,
although in small increments, with the
tanneries in Bangladesh. Simple changes
were made (not specified) that allowed the
workers to perform their jobs more safely,
to reduce pollution, and allow the
businessmen to make a better product at a
better profit. The Foundation claims that “

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• The Asia Foundation claims that::
– “To the casual observer, there is little change. The
wastes are still heaped up around most tanneries, the
air is still putrid, and the nearby rooftops damaged
from acid corrosion. Most workers still cut hide,
handle chemicals, and breath toxic fumes with bare
hands, bare feet and unmasked faces.”
http://www.asiafoundation.org/ngobpweb/cg_cases.htm

– “But at Nur Bhai, there is visible improvement. Less

water and fewer chemicals are used, and the effluent
is recycled, rather than dumped. Solid wastes are
buried, or recycled for use as compost or
manufactured products. Workers wear protective
clothing and, due to safety training, take care during
their duties at the sharp-bladed knives and chemical
vats” http://www.asiafoundation.org/ngobpweb/cg_cases.htm.

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• The foundation admits that broader
reforms will take time, but these are the
first steps in a long journey.

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• The first step in helping correct the
situation is for all of us to become aware
that human and environmental
degradation take place in the production of
this product.
• We need to encourage tighter controls on
the pollution standards at all levels of
production from the feedlots to the
tanneries. These controls should be
financed by the businesses, not the tax
payers.
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The End
 References
• Coggon, David. (1999, May). Occupational Cancer in the United
Kingdom. Environmental Health Perspectives Supplements. Vol
107 Issue 2. 239-245.
• Ellis, Kristi (2002, October 14). Business and Industry. FN.
58(40) 1.
• Hoffenberg, Noah. (2002) EPA lays down groundwork for tannery
cleanup. The Bennington Banner. (check date and Information
Data Base Number))
• Institute for Justice. (1998, May). Assault on slaughter-house
intensifies. Liberty and Law. [Online]. 7(2). (paragraph count)
Available: FTP: Hostname: ij.org Directory:
• Skeem, Maiken. (2002, October 3). Children of the Tanneries. Star
Weekend Magazine. 1(77).
http://www.dailystarnews.com/magazine/2002/10/03/controversy.htm.
• Srivastava, Sanjeev. (23001, August 23). PETA ‘skins’ Indian leather
workers. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/15064m.
• Swift, Richard. (1995, January)(. Pig village and the slaughter house.
New Internationalist. 263.

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 References (Cont.)

• The Asia Foundation. (No date). Bangladesh: mitigating environmental

pollution in the tannery industry.
http://www.asiafoundation.org/ugobpweb/cg cases.
• The General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin. (No date). The
Handbook of Texas Online.
http://:www.tsba.utesas.edu/hadbook/online/articles/print/LL/drl1.html
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (No date). Division of Occupational
Employment Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/oes/2001/oesi3 317.htm.
• U.S. Census Bureau. (No date).
http:factfinder.census.gov/servlet/iqrtable?
• Vartan, Starre. (2002, September/October). E Magazine: the
Environmental Magazine. Volume 13 issue 56. 53-55.
• Swift, M. (2002, November 28). The Great Change: Growing worry:
Feedlots and Pollution. The Hartford Courant. P.A7.
• Living Green Magazine. (2002, November 7). Raising beef takes toll on
land, world hunger. P.103.
• Becker, E. (2002, August 13). Feedlot Perils Outpace Regulation, Sierra
Club Says. The New York Times. Section A: p.10.
• The Namibian. (2002, August 16). Namibia: NAu says caution neede on
local slaughter plans. Africa News.
• http://peta.org
• Cowsarecool.com/enviro.html

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 References (cont)

• http://www.goveg.com/lhaus.html
• http://www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/
• Islam, Tabibul. (2000, June 23). Hell for leather. Asia Times.
Atimes.com

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 Elmer Tosta
Race Poverty and the Environment
Professor Raquel R. Pinderhughes
Urban Studies Program
San Francisco State University
Spring 2003
Public has permission to use the material herein, but only if author, course, university, and professor are
credited.

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