Cape Town, W. Cape, SA (19 June 2024) – The catastrophic collapse of a near-completed building under construction in George in May 2024, which resulted in at least 34 fatalities and many more injured, has shone a spotlight on the need for compliance. This includes health and safety compliance as well as industrial relations (IR) and ...more

The Chairman of the Sustainable Use Coalition (SUCo-SA), Pieter Swart, attended various local and international events recently. He says this report on the state of the wildlife Industry “is a mixture of hope and concern”. ...more

Pretoria, Gauteng, SA – At the time of writing last week, the Sustainable Use Coalition (SUCo-SA) team was in Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the 77th CITES Standing Committee (SC 77) from 06-10 November.The Standing Committee provides policy guidance to the CITES Secretariat concerning the implementation of the Convention. It coordi ...more

1.  Feedback on the Controversial UK TROPHY BAN.Despite much publicity, and input from various African Governments, NGOs and scientists, the House of Commons approved the Trophy Ban bill, but it still needed the approval from the House of Lords. Two amendments were added before passing the Commons: (1) limits the ban to CITES listed ...more

A chemical that is often used in the tanning industry is phthalic acid. At the turn of the last century the industry was fascinated by the development of chromium tanning, that aspired to be a viable alternative to the vegetable tanning method (that was universally practiced). During chromium tannage, masking salts can be added to increas ...more

Whether the user is a finisher, or a technologist in the wet-end, the industry cannot escape the grip that acrylates have on the leather-making process. Many tanners describe the panic and fear they feel when they gaze into the future and see how rapidly polymers are taking over the position, that synthetic tanning agents (syntans) and ve ...more

Cape Town (SA) – The Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) has suspended its planned series of protests outside SA Revenue Services (SARS) offices “intended to demonstrate our extreme unhappiness with the crisis of illegal imports flooding into South Africa which SARS has stopped effectively polic ...more