The overall objective was to improve water quality in Europe by reduction of the nitrogen discharge from the leather industry. A new wastewater treatment technology was implemented in the Elmo Leather AB tannery in Sweden. The technology used included nitrification and denitrification processes in the treatment of tannery wastewater to reduce the discharge of nitrogen. The reduction of the nitrogen discharge has been higher than 80%, in comparison to 30% which is expected to be achieved by traditional technologies.

During the project a new wastewater treatment plant was built to use nitrification and denitrification processes for nitrogen removal from wastewater from the tannery.

The project results was disseminated to other tanneries in European countries via associations and industrial organisations.

The project has been successfully finished and the Summary&Conclusions are available both in english and swedish: en (.pdf); se (.pdf)