Scouring and tanning

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32563, 24 March 1971, Page 20

Scouring and tanning

The expansion of wool-scouring, textile manufacturing, and leather tanning, has been one of the most encouraging industrial developments in New Zealand since the devaluation of 1967. None of this expansion can be attributed solely to devaluation, but the cost advantage of the New Zealand product on overseas markets has certainly contributed greatly to the increase in these exports. Exports of scoured wool more than doubled in the three years after devaluation; and the latest figures— for the six months ended January this year—show an increase of more than 30 per cent on the comparable 1969-70 figures. Scoured wool is valued at 10c per lb more than greasy wool, it weighs less than greasy wool, and New Zealand shippers do not pay freight on the grease. G. L. Bowron and Company, an enterprising Woolston tanning firm, has increased its exports by 50 per cent a year for the last four years. The firm tans sheepskins and lambskins for export; most of its products are consumer goods. Two new tanning ventures, announced in the last 10 days, are different both in scale and in nature from the Woolston firm’s business. The Waitaki Farmers’ Freezing Company and the Fletcher Holdings-Thos. Borthwick-Canterbury Frozen Meat joint venture are talking in terms of millions of pelts a year; and the pelts they export will be for manufacturing purposes. Hides and skins exported in 1968-69, the latest year for which detailed statistics have been published, were valued at $54 million; exports of tanned leather were valued at less than $600,000. In that year 26j million lambs were killed, and 26 million lamb pelts were exported as pickled pelts; both Waitaki and the Fletcher consortium plan to add one or two processes—and several times the value—to their pelt exports in future. New Zealand will benefit not only from the value added in manufacture but from the considerable savings in freight and handling costs to be effected from exporting packs of tanned pelts instead of casks of pickled pelts.

While farmers will be gratified to learn that two groups will be competing for pelts to process, a note of warning should be sounded at this stage. If too many “ crusts ”, as the rough-tanned pelts are termed, were thrown on to world markets too soon by competing sellers New Zealand fanners might suffer rather than benefit from this competition. This may be no more than a remote possibility. More probably, the export of crusts will take some years to develop; like the increase in exports of scoured wool, it should merely divert some of the by-products from increased meat production from one market to another without disturbing existing customers. Just as the expansion of wool-scouring has led to the development of a topmaking industry in New Zealand, so it is logical to expect further processing of pelts to follow the successful establishment of large-scale rough-tanning. Bowron and Company’s example might well encourage others to enter this field. It would be premature to contemplate the export of all New Zealand’s hides and skins in the form of consumer gopds. The first wool scours were established in New Zealand in the nineteenth century, yet only 30 per cent of New Zealand’s wool exports are scoured in this country. The development of new skills and the broadening of the export base will be worth more to New Zealand in the long run than can be measured by export receipts. Care must be taken that this new expansion of New Zealand’s industrial base is not accompanied by increased pollution; New Zealand can learn from the mistakes of other countries which have allowed their tanning industries to foul the countryside. The effluent from a tannery is considerable; untreated, it can pollute a river for miles and contaminate sources of underground water. Pollution from many of the old-established tanneries in Europe and North America could be reduced to acceptable levels only by expensive modifications to plant. The large new tanneries which will be needed in New Zealand will no doubt be required to meet stringent specifications. Because they will be more efficient in all other respects than the old tanneries overseas, the costs of treating and recycling effluents should not be excessive. No industrialist these days can afford to ignore the environment of his factory, or the concern of the community for the environment