Implementation of the Principles of Bioeconomy in Leather Production

Bioeconomy is a promising approach to addressing resource conservation and negative environmental impacts. Given the high potential of bioeconomy principles, many countries worldwide are focused on developing plans with a perspective up to 2050. The main sectors where bioeconomy principles are applied globally include agriculture, light industry, and bioenergy. In Ukraine, the bioeconomy strategy is developing at a slower pace. However, the developed 10R bioeconomy strategies can be adapted in Ukraine, considering the processing industry's development trends. Given the active development of agriculture in Ukraine, including many raw hides (cattle cow, bovine, etc.), the tasks of processing animal hides are relevant. It is known that a large amount of water, energy resources, and chemicals are used in such processing. A significant amount of waste is also generated, which can be used to implement bioeconomy principles. The study optimized the use of raw materials and chemicals by reducing or reusing water and solid leather production waste. It was found that the principles of R2 (Reduce), R3 (Reuse), R8 (Recycle), and R9 (Recover) can be implemented in leather production. The principles of R8 and R3, through the processing of biogenic raw materials and reducing the use of chemicals at the stages of leather production, respectively, have the highest efficiency before implementation.