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Press invitation - Research And Water: Global Visions, Local Actions

April 29, 2002

Water is and has been determinant for life. Its presence and quality conditions human settlements, economic development and ecosystems. Unavoidably, industry consumes water, and waste originating from production processes often has negative impacts on the environment and on human health. As pointed out by Philippe Busquin, Commisioner for Research, "Water management has been on the agenda of industry for at least a decade, and thanks to the advances of scientific and technological research, significant progress has already been achieved by European industry in the sustainable use of this precious resource." Hence it is rather difficult to believe that a reduction of 90% in water consumption could still be possible in certain industries such as tanneries and leather factories. Nevertheless, this impressive result is one of the achievements obtained by three European research projects in the area of integrated water management. The projects will be presented on 2 May in Barcelona at a media briefing organised by the European Commission in the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.

Three projects will be presented to the press, addressing the challenging issues of tanneries (TANNET), the abandoned industrial sites (INCORE) and the treatment of waste water (WASTE WATER CLUSTER) to guarantee overall quality drinking water.

The merits of such projects have been to address the issue of water management from a global perspective by putting together, in an integrated manner, different small research projects tackling specific and complementary parts of the water cycle treatment.

"Sustainable water use is critical for the development of the tanning and leather industry" said Gustavo Gonzalez-Quijano, Secretary General of the Confederation of National Associations of Tanners and Dressers of the European Community. He adds: "Thanks to the application of clean and recycling technologies promoted in the TANNET research network, water pollution will not only decrease in the tanning and leather industry, but also in other industrial branches. This is due to the high transferability of the results obtained in this project, which could be useful to industries such as textile, pulp or paper industry. Overall the know-how exchange will contribute to an overall improvement of the quality of life and a more sustainable management of our soil and water resources in Europe".

Environmental research is currently supplying tanning and leather industry with a great amount of practical results of direct relevance for these two traditional European industries. Significant progress has been made for example in the recycling of chromium, a metal which cannot yet be replaced in the tanning process for certain types of leather. Innovative treatment processes have been developed to reduce the environmental impact of the 'shavings, a detrimental by-product of the leather production process.

But our precious ground- and surface water resources are also threatened by a legacy of the past, the abandoned industry, by pollutants existing in the soil since years and which are now approaching the water bodies. Permanent observation of water, soil and land consumption is essential in order to identify the most critical parts of the overall system and to reverse negative trends into positive ones. New methods to detect, monitor and quantify these threats at the earliest possible stage in urban industrial areas have been developed by these EC research projects.

The combination of the three different research approaches of "TANNET", "WASTE WATER CLUSTER" and "INCORE" provides an extremely powerful tool to support the long-term provision of drinking water of high quality. It will furthermore foster sustainable industrial production processes in European industry and have positive impacts on the employment situation in Europe.

European Commission, Research Directorate