An overview of sustainability of common effluent treatment plant for clusters of tanneries

This paper presents an overview of sustainability of implementation of Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) in Southern India. Implementation of a CETP for the treatment of combined wastewater from small-scale tannery has proved to be a techno-economic option and offered environmentally and economically sustainable method of treatment. Various aspects such as adequacy assessment and upgradation of CETP based on the treatability studies, energy audit, cost-benefit analysis, effect of implementation of CETP on surrounding groundwater and organizational management set-up were studied over a period of 4 years to analyse the sustainability of the CETP. The concept of CETP makes effective use of human, technical, and financial and natural resources and financially sustainable, i.e. being a collective responsibility, it does not fail due to financial constraints. The implementation of CETP is a true example of a step towards sustainable development and suggests that this concept can be effectively used for treatment of various industrial wastewaters emanating from small-scale clusters.