Industrial activity
Figure 3 chromium pollution discolours water (Jaiswal, 2012)
A popular industry in India is the tanning industry; the tanning of hides and furs to produce leather. This process involves a variety of chemicals, including chromium salts, which can be quite dangerous if improperly used. Kanpur is a city in India with a population of about 3 million people; located near the Ganges river, which serves as its primary supplier of water. The river is also used as a dump site for some 80 tanneries in Kanpur (Sampat, 1996). Local small scale tanneries located on the banks of the Ganges river directly deposit chromium into the soil and water around them. The left over flesh, hair, used water and chemicals are discarded in the river. Large scale businesses operate in much the same way because treatment and filtration systems are expensive to operate and install; they are often unused/uninstalled. Poor enforcement of laws and regulations plays a key role in tannery pollution. The Chromium levels in the Ganges river at Kanpur, have been up to 100 times the legal limit in recent years (Morrison, 2011). To make matters worse, the peak tanning time is in the dry season when water levels of the Ganges river can be reduced by up to 80% (Sarkar, 2007). Therefore increasing the toxicity of the water as the concentration of chromium becomes denser and less dispersed.