Production: Industries to adopt cleaner techniques

Project to be launched in Sialkot.

SIALKOT: Pakistan Gloves Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PGMEA), the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) and the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) have decided to launch a project for cleaner production techniques in Sialkot.

PGMEA leader Muhammad Anwar Butt, while talking to the media at the Cleaner Production Centre (CPC) here, said that the project was aimed at enhancing collective production by sports goods and surgical manufacturers, Gujranwala’s metal finishing industry, Gujrat’s fan industry and Wazirabad’s cutlery industry.

He said the introduction of cleaner production techniques has become vital for upgrading and survival of these industries in international markets. He said the government would supervise and monitor the expanded phase of the project, which would bring a boom in the industries.

Butt said the CPC has extended technical assistance to tanneries for improvement of processes and reduction of pollution through conservation of water by installing water flow metres to reduce effluent load.

He said the CPC has also established a chrome recovery plant to recover chrome from spent chrome liquors and has set up an environmental laboratory to facilitate the tanners in examining effluents. It has also established a physical testing laboratory to check the physical properties of leather.

He said training programmes have been conducted for the promotion of cleaner production techniques in the tanning industry.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st,  2011.