Industrial Counseling: Linking Occupational and Environmental Health in Tanneries of Kanpur, India

This paper describes an occupational health program in tanneries in Kanpur, India. The program was instituted as part of a bilateral cooperative effort of India and The Netherlands focusing on providing engineering solutions to prevent industrial waste and community sewage from polluting the Ganges river. The occupational health program was linked to the environmental activities by adopting the concept of industrial counseling. This method aims to increase production and product quality of enterprises and at the same time improve working conditions in these enterprises. The tanneries in Kanpur were targeted for industrial counseling by the Indo-Dutch Environmental and Sanitary Engineering Project Kanpur- Mirzapur under the Ganga Action Plan. Recovery of chrome from wastewater, automation of hydraulic press machines, use of an air-pollution-prevention system in the spray-painting section, and automation of transport are examples of measures used to increase productivity and improve leather quality. Working conditions were improved by adding local exhaust ventilation, mechanizing material transfer, instituting safer procedures for storage and use of toxic materials, and introducing breathing apparatus for operations done in confined spaces to prevent hydrogen sulfide intoxication. The linkage of occupational health problems to environmental issues proved to be effective in drawing attention to working conditions. Also, the application of simple survey techniques to identify and evaluate environmental and occupational hazards substantially increased awareness of these hazards and comprehension of the need to adopt changes among employers, workers, and occupational health professionals. The article discusses the core elements of this successful program.