Responsible Care - Leather and the environment

   

 

It goes without saying that in the leather chemicals sector, as in other areas, LANXESS takes its responsibility towards the public and the environment very seriously. At LANXESS Responsible Care means in many cases doing more than is actually required by law.

Up until just a few decades ago, the tanning trade posed considerable environmental problems, including high consumption of natural resources and pollution of the effluent with chemicals, some of which were not always harmless. This prompted Bayer's engineers and chemists to get together with their partners in the leather-producing and processing industry to try to develop environmentally safe production methods, leather chemicals and processing auxiliaries. By pooling their know-how, they succeeded in turning the tanning trade into the modern, environment-friendly industry it is today.

Comprehensive quality assurance processes ensure that none of the chrome tanning materials sold by LANXESS present a health hazard. Bayer was also one of the first companies to stop using certain azo dyestuffs which are suspected of being harmful to health under particular conditions.

LANXESS places strong emphasis on ecological aspects right from the product development stage. LANXESS employees monitor each product with regard to plant safety and hazard prevention, occupational safety and environmental protection, and confer regularly with customers and end users. Any incidents in which LANXESS products are suspected of being involved are reported to a central Product Monitoring Unit, where they are carefully evaluated so that LANXESS products can be made even safer in future.

 

This, too, is part of LANXESS's concept of "product stewardship".