Acabados Abellán maintains a strong commitment to the environment in the tanning manufacturing process. Within this business strategy of sustainable development, Acabados Abellán constantly incorporates new technical developments that meet present environmental regulations and, at the same time, allow you to maintain a high level of industrial competitiveness.
The tanning sector is one of the longest traditions in Spain. It has gone from a few initial methods that were totally artisanal (that lasted for centuries) to the introduction of modern technologies. Traditionally the sector has always been a stigma attached by the smells and the waste generated by its activity. However, nowadays the area of Elda-Petrer, where Acabados Abellán is located, knows how to unite the craft tradition of this strategic valley with the technological advances needed to be in the forefront of innovation.
Following the European Directive 75/2010/EU on Industrial Emissions, Acabados Abellán has applied appropriate measures to prevent pollution, mainly through Best Available Techniques (BATs). The transposition of the European Directive to the Spanish legislation was supplemented by the law 5/2013, on 11June, amending the current law 16/2002 and the Royal Decree 815/2013, of 18 October, which approves the regulation of industrial emissions and development of law 16/2002, of July 1, on integrated pollution prevention and control.
It is clear that the consumer has evolved, and after reviewing the food labelling to know what is eaten, we have begun to read – and decrypt with criterion – the composition of the garments that dress and shoes that are fitted. Increasingly customers wish to know not only matters pertaining to issues such as if the item can be washed or must be hand-washed: but also knowledge of the origin of the raw material, spinning, the dyeing and the manufacturing of the skin or sewing of the clothes. All this is data that allow to know if we have an environmentally friendly product and with the people who have made it.
Acabados Abellán faces the problems arising from the consumption of resources or emissions that occur during the finishing process of the skins with the best techniques. One of the key points on which we have focused our efforts has been in the management of water, especially avoid losses due to excessive washing, adapt the processes and machinery to reduce consumption and reuse and recycle water whenever possible.
Another basic aspect of the ethical commitment of the company is the proper use and substitution of certain chemicals used in the process by others which are less hazardous and more environmentally friendly. Important investments have been made in the segregation of waste to ensure adequate rear treatment and thus reduce them.
In addition, the commitment of Acabados Abellán includes other fundamental factors such as how to determine the appropriate parameters to monitor emissions to the environment and exercise a responsible leadership that includes the training and preparation of the staff, safety measures for the workers and the environment.
Faced with this adaptation of the Spanish tanning industry to clean processes with reduction of pollutant discharges, on the opposite side you can find companies from countries such as China or India without any environmental control. It may serve as an example the case of the District of Dindigul Indian, in the State of Tamil Nadu, where in recent decades have created nearly 90 tanneries that emerged in his day as a form of employment and local development. They began as small craft workshops, but to increase the demand for skins, tanneries used processes of chrome tanning without subsequent treatments of discharges. As a result, there have been over-exploited aquifers and surface deposits that had been traditionally used for agriculture and are now contaminated. There is little agriculture or fishing and groundwater is no longer drinkable. This seems to be the origin of multiple conditions to the population.
Aware that a more sustainable industry (and responsible with the planet) is the only possible future, Acabados Abellán invests in technology to achieve modern finishing processes and a high-quality leather known in the international market by the great added value that gives the products to which it is used, especially shoes and handbags.
