V.Anuradha (1999) Feed Formulation for Fish and Poultry using Hideflesh from Tanneries

SURVEY OF TANNERIES

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Tanning is an age old process and references to leather and leather tanning

figure in Indian civilisation right from the first century. Tanneries began to

develop in their modern form only after the first World War. By 1913, about 25

tanneries had been established in India and, by 1941, the number of tanneries rose

to 114. Currently about 13 percent of the world's total output of leather comes

from India and tanning is the fifth largest industry in this country, fetching

appreciable foreign exchange. India exports finished leather, leather foot-wear,

leather garments, foot-wear components and finished leather goods in large

quantities.

A total of about 1083 tanneries are located in states like Uttar Pradesh.

Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andra Pradesh and West Bengal. Every year more than

20 million cattle skins, 17.8 million buffalo skins, 74.5 million goat skins and 31.7

million sheep skins are being processed in India (Anonymous, 1980). Roughly 40

percent of the total tanneries of India are located in Tamil Nadu. Dindigul, a

medium size town near Gandhigram, is one of the centers where active tanning is

carried out in more than 60 tanneries.

Approximately 1.3 million tons of solid wastes in the form of raw hides,

skin trimmings, hairs, lime splits and limed fleshings are produced annually during

leather processing (Rao et.al., 1991). The hairs are mainly used in the carpet

industry and the fleshings are utilised for the production of glue and gelatin.

However, due to the advent of artificial glue, the demand for natural glue has gone

down.

The hide fleshings are rich in protein and fat (both saturated and

unsaturated) which are not utilised properly. If they are properly processed and

stored, there is a scope for using them in animal feed. Hence in the present

study, an attempt was made to use this as a substitute for fishmeal in the feed of

fish and poultry after subjecting the hide fleshings to processing.

As the study requires information regarding the availability of the

fleshings, a survey was carried out with the following objectives.

® To assess the number of tanneries functioning (some tanneries are defunct)

around Dindigul town and their capacity of processing hides and skins.

• To find out the quantity and the place from which the raw hides/skins are

being procured.

• To assess the actual quantity of hides/skins processed in selected tanneries.

• To assess the quantity of hides/ skins processed in the different categories of

selected tanneries during the past ten years.

• To quantify the fleshings that can be recovered from a hide/skin.

• To map the location of various tanneries and their size

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1.2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

The list of existing tanneries of Dindigul (Tamil Nadu, India) was obtained

from the Tanners' Association, Dindigul, and the list was tallied with the list

available with the Pollution Control Board of Tamil Nadu. All the tanneries in the

list were visited and information on the average daily production was collected

from their records, and, based on the quantity of hide (skin of cow or buffalo)

and skin (skin of goat or sheep) processed, tanneries were grouped into three

categories i.e. big, medium and small. Those tanneries that process raw materials

more than 4000 kg/day are grouped as big size tanneries, the tanneries that

process 1500 to 4000 kg/day are grouped as medium size tanneries, and, the

tanneries that process less than 1500 kg/day are grouped as small size tanneries.

Information regarding the places and the quantities of raw hide/skin

procured for the various tanneries and also information on the number of

hides/skins processed during the past ten years from selected tanneries were

collected from the records.

After grouping the tanneries, 15 tanneries were selected for further study

based on multistage stratified random sampling method. Table 1 indicates the

number of industries existing under each category and the sample size chosen for

study.

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Table 1 Categories of tanneries and the sample size

Maps were prepared indicating the concentration of tanneries in Tamil

N a d u and the location of tanneries in Dindigul and their capacity to process

hide/skin.

Each of die selected tanneries as per the table shown above,was studied

intensively keeping the objectives in view. These tanneries were visited during

the first week of every month on a working day over a period of three years (1992

- 1994) to quantify the actual daily production of solid wastes (fleshings). The

number of hides/skins subjected to defleshing were counted and weighed. After

every three hours, the number of flesh-free hides/skins were counted and

weighed. Thus the total production of solids per day was computed.

Fifteen hides and fifteen skins were randomly picked and defleshed. The

quantum of fleshings collected was weighed and recorded so as to know the solid

was te output from the hides and skins. The data were subjected to analysis of

variance.

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LOCATION OF TANNERIES IN DINDIGUL -

Detailed legend to

Figure 3

1 . Zakkiriya Prime Tannery, Ponmandurai road.

2 . Sarathy Tanners, Ponmandurai road.

3 . M.Mohaideen Thumby & Co, Ponmandurai road.

4 . Asrafunnisha Tannery, Batalgundu road.

5 . Jamal Mohamed Tannery, Batalgundu road.

6 . Makhdoom Easa & Co, Batalgundu road.

7 . S.S.International Tannery, Batalgundu road.

8 . Sri Annai Abirami Tanners, Palani bye-pass road.

9 . Bava Moideen Tannery, Madurai road.

10 . Khadersha & Bros, Madurai road.

11 . Krishna Skin Traders, Madurai road.

12 . Meenakshi & Co, Madurai road.

13 . G.A.Rathinam & Bros., Madurai road.

14 . R.S. & Sons, Madurai road.

15 . Siddique Leathers, Madurai road.

Ponmandurai road. Figure 2 indicates the per day production of the tanneries in

Dindigul and figure 3 indicates the location of tanneries and the tanneries

selected for the present study.

The tanners of Dindigul town procure the raw materials (hides/skins)

from various States of the country and the quantity of hide/skin procured is given

in Table 3. The five year (1992-1996) records show that 37.3 percent of the

hides/skins are procured from various parts of Tamil Nadu itself and 14.7 percent

and 12.2 percent are procured from Andra Pradesh and Kerala states respectively.

Besides these southern States, hides are also procured from Punjab (6.9 percent).

Delhi (7.6 percent), Hariyana (6.52 percent) and Maharashtra (16.4 percent). An

average of 381 lakhs of raw hides/skins are procured everyday by these 60

tanneries.

Table 3 Raw hides/skins procured from various states for processing by the

tanneries of Dindigul town during 1992-1996

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Only 6 tanneries out of the 60 tanneries, possess the capacity to process

more than 4000 kg of hides/skins per day (big size tanneries); 29 tanneries

process 1500-4000 kg of hides/skins per day (medium size tanneries); and, 25

tanneries process less than 1500 kg/day (small size tanneries). The list of these

tanneries and the quantity of hides/skins processed per day are given in Table 4,5

and 6 respectively.

Table 4 Rate of production of hides/skins in big size tanneries of Dindigul (based

on ten years record 1986-1995)

Table 6 Rate of Production of hides/skins in small size tanneries of Dindigul town

(based on ten years record - 1986-95)

Bava Moideen Tannery, Madurai Road Abdul Hameed Tannery, Madurai Road A. Jeyaram Tannery, Madurai Road Kadir Tanners, Palani bye pass Road .K.M.A. Jamal Mohamed Tannery, Batlagundu Road K. Kaja Moideen Tannery, Palani bye pass Road Kaku Syed Leathers, Ponmandurai Road T.P.K.Kalifullah & Bros, Ponmandurai Road Krishna Skin Traders, Madurai Road T.P. Khadarsha Rowther Tannery, Madurai Road M.D.S.S. Tannery, Madurai Road Meenatchi Tannery, Madurai Road R.S. & Sons, Madurai Road M.S. Leathers, Palani bye pass Road S. Mohamed Abdullah Tannery,. Palani bye pass Road Mohamed Imran Tannery, Batlagundu Road S. Mohamed Moideen Tannery, Madurai Road Nujum Prime Tannery, Batlagundu Road Sara Prime Tannery, Ponmandurai Road Zakkiriya Prime Tannery, Ponmandurai Road Stephen Mary Tannery, Batlagundu Road V.M.I. Tannery, Batlagundu Road C. Wilson Tannery, Palani bye pass Road Harris Tanning Industry, Ponmandurai Road

751 ± 1 0 6 * 1407 ±204 1405± 135 1409 ±116 1007 ± 107* 1103± 11 1406±124 1757± 110 1401± 118 * 759± 88 1401± 119 1406± 125 759 ± 109* 1005± 134 1404± 124 1403 ± 104 1208± 106 1401± 124 1404± 135 1205± 125 * 1408± 124 1407± 104 1009±136 1405± 116

* selected for detailed study

The 15 tanneries selected for the study to find out the actual quantity of

hide/skin processed are located on the Dindigul-Ponmandurai Road, the Dindigul

- Madurai road and the Dindigul - Batlagundu road (figure 3). Among these

fifteen tanneries, only 2 tanneries (13.3 percent) process both hides and skins,

while 7 tanneries (46.6 percent) process only goat or sheep skin and 6 tanneries

(40 percent) process only hide. The actual quantity of hides/skins processed

during 1992-94 in these 15 tanneries is shown in Table 7.

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Defleshing Process

Besides the secondary data on the quantity of hides/skins processed per day

in these 15 tanneries, in order to find out the exact quantity of hides/skins

processed/day, these selected tanneries were visited every first week of the month

for a period of 3 years. The observation showed that the big size tanneries

deflesh an average quantity of 4760 kg/day, the medium size tanneries deflesh

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The average quantity of fleshings (solid wastes) collected from a hide is

2.9±0.5 kg and the quantity of fleshings collected from a skin is 0.456±0.04kg.

The normal weight of a skin before defleshing ranges from 2 kg to 2.5 kg and that

of a hide ranges from 4.5 to 5 kg. Generally skins are defleshed manually. An

average of ten labourers are work in a medium size tannery and the number of

labourers is increased as and when the work warrants it.

The number of hides/skins processed over a period of ten years (1986 to

1995) in the selected 15 tanneries is given in Table 9.

1.4 DISCUSSION

Tanneries in Tamil Nadu are mainly located in North Arcot, Dindigul

Chingleput and Coimbatore districts. Due to recent thrust in the export of finished

leather products, many more tanneries have come into existence in other districts

like Thiruchirapalli, Salem, Thirunelveli etc. Except in Dindigul, in all other

districts, the tanneries are highly localised and located on river banks. In Dindigul

the tanneries are widely spread in the south and the south-west part of the town.

but all the tanneries are within 5 km distance from the town. Some of the

tanneries are 60-80 years old.

In many tanneries defleshing operation is carried out manually, however

they are gradually switching over to machanisation in response to the need of large

scale production. At the time of the survey it was found that 30 percent of the

tanneries used machines for defleshing.

The quantity of raw skin and hide procured from other States showed no

significant increase over a period of five years. Most of the tanneries work on

lease basis. Businessmen from other states also use Dindigul tanneries for

processing hides and skins. Annually an average of 38 lakhs of hides and skins

enter Dindigul town for processing.

Of the 60 tanneries located in Dindigul, seven process hides and skins, 41

process only skins and 12 process only hides. During the survey period, due to the

Supreme Court's order, the production in some of the tanneries was reduced to a

fixed quantity. Hence observation was carried out over 36 months to find out the

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actual quantity of hides/skins processed by these selected tanneries. An average

of 33091 kg of hides/skins were defleshed in a day in the 15 tanneries.

Approximately 12.9 lakh kgs of hides/skins are defleshed in all the 60

tanneries in a day. Those tanneries that deflesh only skins produce an average of

18,899 kg of flesh/day; those tanneries that deflesh only hides produce an average

of 7852 kg of flesh/day; and, those tanneries that deflesh both skins and hides

produce an average of 12,375 kg of flesh/day.

The survey of the quantities of hides/skins processed over a period of ten

years showed a consistency, pointing to the regular availability of a substantial

quantity of fleshings. These wastes are either un-used or sold to industries which

manufacture gelatin(glue) and one such industry is functioning at Dindigul itself.

However, these fleshings, which are rich in proteins and fats, could be processed

and used as a protein source in the feed of animals especially when synthetic glue

replaced the natural glue.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anonymous. 1990. Report on capacity Rao.N.M.. Sastry.T.P.. Sivaparvathy.M. and

utilisation and scope for modernisation in Indian Srinivasan .T.S..1994. Evaluation of tannery

tanning industry. Central Leather Research by-product meals for broiler. Indian J.Poultry

Institute. Madras. 12-58. Science. 29(l):37-41.

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