The organizers of the national campaign to raise awareness of the need to collect and recycle skins of sheep slaughtered during Eid al-Idha in 2023 are aiming to recover 500,000 skins, or around 50% of the total, compared with 38% last year.
The operation was launched last week, ahead of the Eid al-Idha on Wednesday, June 28, on the initiative of a number of environmental associations, the National Leather and Footwear Centre and a group of municipalities in 12 governorates, by distributing awareness-raising leaflets, plastic bags and salt at various gathering points, notably markets and sheep sales outlets.
Sami Ben Yahia, President of the Association “Pour une Tunisie Propre” (For a Clean Tunisia) said this year’s campaign, the sixth of its kind, aims, like those that preceded it, to raise public awareness of the value of sacrificed sheepskins, so as to benefit both the environment and the national economy, since, over a million skins a year are thrown into the environment.
Similar campaigns are organized every year in Algeria, where more than two million skins are collected each year, making more effective use of social networks.
As far as the Tunisian campaign is concerned, the collection is entrusted to specialized teams responsible for collecting the skins and transporting them to the tanneries to be turned into leather.
For their part, citizens are asked to put the skins in plastic bags with salt, as recommended in the leaflets, and hand them over to the collection teams. However, it is recommended that the skins are handled with care so as not to damage them.
In addition to the skins intended for collection, citizens are asked to avoid dumping other sacrificial waste in an uncontrolled manner, so as not to pollute the environment and make the work of municipal workers even more difficult.
40 million pairs of shoes
In addition to its undeniable environmental dimension, the project has an economic aspect of the utmost importance, given the economic importance of the leather and footwear sector. Its indicators make it a real flagship of the Tunisian economy, despite the difficulties it faces.
Leather tanning is a centuries-old tradition in Tunisia. In the capital, Tunis, there is a street called “rue des tanneurs”.
The well-known Tanneries Mégisseries du Maghreb (TMM) is the undisputed leader in the sector in Africa and the Middle East, while more than 130 of the 189 companies operating in the leather and footwear sector in Tunisia export their entire production to Europe and other continents.
However, there is no shortage of problems, and they are as numerous as they are thorny, especially when it comes to the footwear component.
According to concordant data from administrative and industrial reports, local footwear consumption in Tunisia amounts to 40 million pairs per year, of which 47% is met by local production, 37% by craftsmen and 17% by industrial production.
Around 53% of local demand is met by imports, 65% of which come from illegal imports and the marketing of second-hand shoes, which is prohibited by law.
Two weeks ago, on June 9, the Executive Committee of the National Federation of Leather and Shoes (Fédération nationale du cuir et de la chaussure), which is under the UTICA, sounded the alarm about uncontrolled imports, parallel trade and the sale of second-hand shoes (friperie) invading the Tunisian market.
It deplored the silence of the authorities and the lack of response to the association’s correspondence on the deteriorating situation in the leather and footwear sector and the threat to the survival of companies operating in this sector.
It even called for a Cabinet meeting to be convened as soon as possible to examine the difficulties facing the leather and footwear sector.
