Sino US Leather Industry Roundtable Convened In Beijing

Recently, China

Association and the United States

The Leather Association held a round table conference on leather industry in Beijing. At the Roundtable, the representatives of both sides expressed concern about the latest situation of the inspection and quarantine supervision and management measures of entry and exit non edible animal products (hereinafter referred to as "No. 159"), which was implemented by the AQSIQ in February 1, 2015.

To this end, the meeting invited Liu Jinlong, director of the Department of animal and plant supervision of the AQSIQ, to introduce the latest implementation of the relevant policies.

No. 159 is suitable for standardizing the inspection, quarantine and supervision of entry and exit non edible animal products including leather sheets.

According to the regulations, AQSIQ carries out risk management for entry and exit of non edible animal products, and implements product risk classification, enterprise classification, quarantine admittance, risk warning and other risk management measures on the basis of risk analysis.

According to the risk classification management of imported leather, the risk level of raw leather is I grade. The inspection and quarantine supervision measures include: 1. evaluation of export country or region regulatory system, registration of overseas production and processing, registration of entry animal and plant quarantine before entering the country, 2. inspection of quarantine certificate and inspection and quarantine when entering the country; 3. entry, storage, processing and inspection and quarantine supervision in designated enterprises.

Imported risk level of grade II or above

(for example, salted skin, grey skin, etc.), the owner or his agent shall conduct quarantine licenses in accordance with relevant regulations.

For the registered examination and other related issues of concern to the American enterprises, Liu Jinlong said that when necessary, AQSIQ will send the staff to the exporting countries for system evaluation and enterprise registration assessment.

The macro level includes: assessing the organization, laws and regulations, animal safety and health prevention and control system, testing and monitoring capabilities of the competent departments of foreign non animal products, whether they meet the relevant requirements of Chinese laws, regulations and standards, or achieve the equivalent requirements of relevant laws, regulations and standards in China.

The microscopic level includes: checking whether the production and processing enterprises are effectively carrying out the production, processing and product safety and hygiene quality control according to the relevant laws and regulations of the host country, and whether the product quality meets the relevant requirements of China.

At present, the export of leather products has been carried out for assessment and registration of enterprises in Germany, Croatia and Poland.

After completing the system evaluation and enterprise inspection, AQSIQ will publish the list of registered enterprises and product categories on the portal website.

The overseas production and processing enterprises that meet the requirements of the exporting countries and China's relevant laws, regulations and standards are registered by the AQSIQ in written examination or on-site inspection, and the validity period of registration is 5 years.

An overseas production and processing enterprise that needs to be postponed shall be submitted to the AQSIQ 6 months before the expiration date of the validity period.

At the same time, Liu Jinlong stressed that this is a dynamic list that will be adjusted according to the actual situation of enterprises.

In regard to China's environmental protection, especially the environmental protection related to the leather industry, Pei Xiaofei, director of the standard office of the Ministry of environmental protection technology policy and standards, said that the Ministry of environmental protection has promulgated the standards and policies for water pollutants discharge in tanning and fur processing industry and water pollution prevention and control plan in recent years, and put forward clear requirements for the pollution discharge and management of leather industry.

For example, the former set limit requirements for 13 pollutants projects, set up the unit product baseline displacement, and prevent dilution and discharge. From January 1st this year, the existing and newly built enterprises should carry out the new limit requirements.

The latter requires the leather industry to ban the production projects of serious polluted water environment which do not conform to the national industrial policy by the end of 2016, and to carry out the technical pformation of chromium reduction and closed cycle utilization before the end of 2017, and encourage the deep treatment and reuse of enterprise waste water.

In addition, the State Ministry of industry and Commerce has issued the "standard conditions for leather industry" to make specific provisions on the layout of the leather industry, the scale of enterprise production, the technology and equipment, and the environmental protection.

This year, the Ministry of environmental protection will promote the introduction of relevant standards for emission standards of air pollutants in leather products industry.

For the leather industry's environmental protection work, Pei Xiaofei put forward three points of hope: first, leather enterprises are highly concerned about environmental issues.

The new environmental protection act, which was implemented in 2015, stipulates that the illegal enterprises are ordered to make corrections and refuses to correct them. The environmental protection departments can continue to punish them according to the original amount of punishment.

And clearly stipulates that the key pollutant discharge units should truthfully disclose their names, ways of discharging their main pollutants, discharge concentration and total amount, excessive discharge of pollutants, and the construction and operation of pollution control facilities, and accept social supervision.

Two, enterprises should take full process control measures to prevent and reduce the generation and discharge of pollutants.

In terms of cleaner production, low salt preservation, hair removal, high chrome absorption and chrome tanning, and reduction of salt consumption in tanning process are adopted to reduce the discharge of water pollutants. Environmental friendly adhesives are used to reduce volatile organic compounds emissions.

In the aspect of terminal pollution control, including trivalent chromium and sulfide treatment, the COD and nitrogen removal should be cut down simultaneously. Activated carbon adsorption or catalytic combustion should be used to ensure discharge.

The three is to strengthen Sino US exchanges and cooperation in leather control technology.

The United States has mature technology and successful experience in the treatment of leather wastewater and waste gas. With the increasingly stringent requirements of environmental protection in China, the demand for environmental protection industry is strong, and it is hoped that the two sides will strengthen exchanges and promote the sustainable development of China's leather industry.

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Specific to the environmental protection profile of China's leather industry, Chen Zhanguang, Deputy Secretary General of China Leather Association, summed it up as three characteristics: increasingly stringent environmental management (policies and standards), increasing awareness of environmental protection (investment and Governance), and continuous development of Technology (clean production and pollution control).

Compared with 2010, the emissions of main pollutants such as wastewater, COD and ammonia nitrogen in the leather industry in 2015 decreased by 16.7%, 50.3% and 52.7%, respectively. The clean production technology and pollution control technology in the industry have been progressing with remarkable results.

In addition, he also informed the industry concerned about chromium related leather waste as a hazardous waste regulation related work progress.

According to the actual situation of trivalent chromium in leather making, the Ministry of environmental protection has included the list of chromium containing leather fragments in the list of exemption categories issued in the national hazardous waste list (December 2015) completed by the Ministry of environmental protection. It stipulates that the recycling of resources that can be used in certain areas should not be regarded as hazardous waste disposal.

As a supplement, the "leather industry solid waste pollution control standards" will standardize the disposal and utilization of solid wastes in leather industry, especially those containing chrome leather, and reduce and eliminate environmental risks to a large extent at the same time of realizing the recycling utilization of chrome containing leather scrap.

In guiding the industry to carry out environmental protection work, the China Leather Association has continuously carried out key tasks such as ecological leather, environmental protection verification, environmental protection innovation award and so on. In 2015, it organized the industry to compile and publish the "tannery industry water saving and emission reduction technology roadmap", and combed the development status of the leather reduction technology in the leather industry. According to the development needs of the industry, the development roadmap of water-saving and emission reduction technology in the leather industry in the next 5~10 years was launched, and the goal of water saving and emission reduction was put forward through the implementation of the technology, so as to guide the sustainable development of the industry.