Chief executive Neville Dyer in the dyehouse, which is being upgraded with six huge new rotating drums.
Chief executive Neville Dyer in the dyehouse, which is being upgraded with six huge new rotating drums.
Whanganui manufacturer Tasman Tanning has embarked on a $5 million-plus upgrade that has been slowed by Covid-19 and its "unexpected consequences".
The tannery had orders for more products than it could make, chief executive Neville Dyer said. It was hampered by staff shortages and rising costs of all kinds.
Theupgrade aims to eventually remove all contaminants from the wastewater the factory contributes to the Whanganui wastewater treatment plant. That is still some distance from being achieved, and Whanganui District Council wants to see continued improvement.
The upgrade, which was about halfway through, would also reduce water and energy use, Dyer said.
Staff are the manufacturer's main challenge. Tasman Tanning has about 200 employees, but about 30 are absent daily, largely due to Covid infections and isolations.
There's no transmission within the factory. Staff are working in bubbles and being tested at least weekly.
Dyer said he wanted to increase staffing to 240 general hands, but he hadn't been able to get back to even the pre-Covid staffing level of 2019.
"We provide training and all the facilities that they need. We adjusted pay rates, give holidays for birthdays. You name it. It doesn't make a scrap of difference," he said.
Two of the drums have yet to be installed. Photo / Bevan Conley
The factory's dyehouse and tanyard are being automated with big new revolving drums replacing smaller ones. There will be six in the dyehouse, each holding 500 cattle hides at a time. The cost of that change is $2 million.
The tanyard will eventually replace eight smaller drums with larger ones, with that upgrade costing $1.5 million.
The cost of the drums had increased 50 per cent since the project began, Dyer said. The cost of chemicals had increased more than 15 per cent and the cost of sending freight to Europe had tripled - if shipping could be found at all.
"We've got product packed and ready for export, but we can't get shipping."
The factory plans to stop using gas to dry skins and move to an infrared drying system. It has government "decarbonisation" funding ready for a heat exchange system to heat water.
It pays for the many cubic metres of water it uses each day, and pays again for the water's treatment in the wastewater treatment plant.
Improvements to the plant's wastewater will cost at least another $1 million. Tasman is building a new "balancing tank" that will hold a day's wastewater and release it evenly.
The next stage will be a dissolved air flotation unit that will concentrate waste for reuse, and could allow water, too, to be reused.
Eventually, the plant may treat all its waste at the site.
"We have to look at the overall effluent treatment options available to us and how far we take it," Dyer said.
The tanyard is also being upgraded, to an eventual total of eight new drums. Photo / Bevan Conley
Tasman Tanning hasn't yet met Whanganui District Council's limits for the tannery chemical chromium III in its wastewater - 5g/litre or 10kg/day. It exceeded that limit for 302 of the 365 days in the last calendar year, the council said.
The excess chromium could become an expensive problem for the council, because it makes dried sludge from the wastewater treatment plant too toxic to apply to land.
As well as the chromium breaches, Tasman Tanning's suspended solid limits were breached on 91 days, ammoniacal nitrogen limits on 41 days, oil and grease limits on 63 days, sulphate limits on 19 days, and sulphide limits on 206 days.
"We still have a little way to go, but we also have some concerns about testing variation between [the council] results and our results. We work very closely with them," Dyer said.
The council is expected to tell Horizons Regional Council about any breach that affects their consents to discharge wastewater to the Tasman Sea. New Zealand lacks legislation that allows district councils to fine businesses like the tannery for wastewater breaches.
Tasman Tanning processes about a third of the cattle hides in New Zealand, converting a portion of them into finished leather. Since last year it has also processed 1.8 million lamb skins a year by trimming, salting and grading them before export.
