Cividep India’s collaborative research report on environmental and health impacts of the tanning industry in Tamil Nadu finds mention in an article by the Pulitzer Centre on India’s tanneries. It speaks of how environmental and worker protections are lacking in India’s major tannery clusters of Kolkata and Tamil Nadu. Despite being one of the world’s largest exporters of leather and Tamil Nadu contributing 60-70% of this, occupational health and safety risks for workers remain high and have not seen improvements. Mostly working with skins and hides by hand, in direct contact with toxic chemicals, and under a big risk of industrial accidents, the workers are often not even aware of the hazards posed by the material they handle on a daily basis, as found in our research.
Read the entire article here.
Access our report on working conditions in Tamil Nadu’s tanneries here.