Leather shavings

The tanned leathers are brought to uniform thickness with a folding machine, a type of shaving machine. Shavings result in the course of this planing process. As with wood, fiberboard is produced from these shavings, which means that the they are recycled. Chrome-tanned shavings, however, may also be dissolved by another process. The protein hydrolysate obtained can be separated from the chromium by another process and, for instance, used as gelatin in photochemistry. The chromium can be recovered and used as a tanning agent again. For cost considerations, however, it is mainly deposited in landfills.
The vegetable shavings can also be fed to a composting facility. Since tanned leather, on the other hand, is conserved and durable, the composting takes considerably longer. On account of the insufficient composting capacity, the same problem exists with slag, so that vegetable shavings must also either be deposited in landfills or burnt.