National Standard of

the People's Republic ofChina

GB 30486—2013

Discharge Standard of Water Pollutants for Leather and Fur Making Industry

(Released version)

Issued on December 27, 2013 Implemented on March 1, 2014

Issued by	The Ministry of Environmental Protection
	General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic ofChina(AQSIQ)

Table of Contents

Preface ..........................................................................................................................................II

1. Scope of application..................................................................................................................... 1

2. Normative references.................................................................................................................... 1

3. Terms and definitions ............................................................................................................ 2

4. Requirements on water pollutant discharge control.......................................................................... 3

5. Requirements on water pollutants monitoring.................................................................................. 5

6. Implementation and supervision...................................................................................................... 6

Preface

In order to implement the Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, the Marine Environment Protection Law of the People's Republic of China and other laws and regulations, protect environment, prevent pollution and promote the process and pollution control technology of leather and fur processing companies, this standard was stipulated hereby.

This standard specifies the discharge limits of water pollutants of leather and fur processing companies and requirements on monitoring and controlling and stipulates special water pollutant discharge limits to key areas. Air pollutants (including odor pollutants) and environmental noise discharged by leather and fur processing companies shall comply with the relevant national pollutant discharge standards, and identification, treatment and disposal of generated solid waste shall comply with the relevant national solid waste control standards.

This standard was released for the first time.

The water pollutant discharge shall be controlled in accordance with this standard from March 1, 2014 for the newly established leather and fur processing companies and from July 1, 2014 for the existing companies, but not in accordance with relevant regulations of the Integrated Wastewater Discharge Standard (GB8978-1996).

This standard is the basic requirement of water pollutant control in the leather industry. For the pollutants that have not been specified by provincial governments, local pollutant discharge standards can be prepared; for the pollutants that has been specified by this standard, local pollutant discharge standards stricter than this standard can be prepared. In case that the requirements in the environmental impact assessment document are more stringent than those of this standard, the environmental impact assessment document shall prevail.

This standard was prepared by the Department of Science, Technology and Standards of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic ofChina.

This standard was mainly drafted by the China Leather Industry Association, the China Cleaner Production Center of Light Industry and the Environmental Standard Institute of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

This standard was approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection on December 16, 2013. This standard will come into force from March 1, 2014.

The standard shall be explained by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Discharge Standard of Water Pollutants

for Leather and Fur Making Industry

1. Scope of application

This standard specifies the discharge limits of water pollutants of leather and fur processing companies, requirements on monitoring and controlling and relevant regulations related to implementation and supervision of this standard.

This standard applies to the management of water pollutant discharge for the existing leather and fur processing companies.

In addition, this standard also applies to the environmental impact assessment of any construction project, design of environmental protection facilities, inspection and acceptance of completion environment protection and post-production water pollutant discharge management for leather and fur processing companies.

Furthermore, this standard also applies to the water pollution discharge specified by laws; in addition, location selection of newly established pollution resources and existing pollution resources management within special protection areas shall be implemented in accordance with relevant regulations of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, the Marine Environment Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, the Law of the People's Republic of China on Evaluation of Environmental Effects and other laws and regulations.

The water pollutant discharge control specified by this standard is required to be applicable to the direct or indirect water pollutants discharge by any companies to the outside of legal borders.

2. Normative references

This standard has quoted some terms in the following documents. For any reference document without dates, its valid version shall be applicable to this standard.

GB/T 6920 Water quality Measurement of pH Glass electrode method

GB/T 7466 Water quality Measurement of total chrome Spectrophotometry

GB/T 7467 Water quality Measurement of hexavalent chrome Diphenyl hydrazine spectrophotometry

GB/T 11893 Water quality Measurement of total phosphorus Ammonium molybdate spectrophotometry

GB/T 11901 Water quality Measurement of suspended solids Weight method

GB/T 11903 Water quality Measurement of chromaticity Dilution multiple method

GB/T 11914 Water quality Measurement of chemical oxygen demand Dichromate method

GB/T 16489 Water quality Measurement of sulfide Methylene blue spectrophotometry

HJ/T 60 Water quality Measurement of sulfides Iodimetry

HJ/T 84 Water quality Measurement of inorganic anions Ion chromatography

HJ/T 132 Wastewater with high chloride Measurement of chemical oxygen demand Potassium iodide alkaline potassium permanganate

HJ/T 195 Water quality Measurement of ammonia nitrogen Gas-phase molecular absorption spectrometry

HJ/T 199 Water quality Measurement of total nitrogen Gas-phase molecular absorption spectrometry

HJ 505 Water quality Measurement of five-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD₅) Dilution and inoculation methods

HJ 535 Water quality Measurement of ammonia nitrogen Nessler's reagents spectrophotometer

HJ 536 Water quality Measurement of ammonia nitrogen Spectrophotometric method with salicylic acid

HJ 537 Water quality Measurement of ammonia nitrogen Distillation-neutralization titration

HJ 636 Water quality Measurement of total nitrogen Alkaline potassium persulfate UV digestion spectrophotometry

HJ 637 Water quality Measurement of oil and animal and vegetable oils Infrared spectrophotometry

The Pollution Resources Monitoring and Management Measures (Order 28 of the Ministry of Environmental Protection)

The Environmental Monitoring and Management Measures (Order 39 of the Ministry of Environmental Protection)

3. Terms and definitions

The following terms and definitions are applicable to this standard.

3.1 Raw leathers

It refers to the initial leather used for processing leathers or furs of leather companies or fur processing companies, including products at all stages prior to finished leathers or finished furs, such as raw hides, wet blue leathers, crust leathers and so on.

3.2 Tanning

The hides (i.e. raw hides) stripped from animal carcasses, such as pigs, cattle, sheep and other animals first; afterwards, they are systematically processed in chemical and physical methods and are manufactured as semi-finished or finished leathers suiting for all kinds of application. The procedure of making finished leathers by finishing and processing semi-finished leathers belongs to tanning.

3.3 Fur processing

The hides (including furs and skins) stripped from fur animal carcasses first; afterwards, they are systematically processed in chemical and physical methods and are manufactured as products with furs.

3.4 Tanning companies

It refers to a company, which is specialized in tanning with raw hides or semi-finished leathers (including wet blue and crust leathers) as raw materials.

3.5 Fur processing companies

It refers to the company to produce finished furs or sheared furs with raw hides as raw materials, such as sheep hides, fox hides, mink hides and so on.

3.6 Existing companies

It refers to a leather or fur processing company and its production facilities prior to the date of implementing this standard, that is, it has been established and put into production, or its environmental impact assessment document has been approved.

3.7 Newly established companies

It refers to a newly constructed, renovated and expanded leather or fur processing construction project with approval of its environmental impact assessment document starting from the implementation date of this standard.

3.8 Displacement

It refers to the amount of wastewater discharged by production facilities or companies to the outside of its legal boarders. The wastewater includes all kinds of discharged wastewater (including plant sewage, cooling water, plant boilers and power plant discharged water) directly or indirectly related to production .

3.9 Unit product reference displacement

It refers to the upper limit of wastewater displacement resulting from processing unit raw hide as specified in order to inspect the water pollutant discharge concentration.

3.10 Public wastewater treatment systems

It refers to the system that provides wastewater treatment service for over 2 wastewater discharge companies or institutions and make their discharge be in line with relevant discharge standards, including urban wastewater treatment plants and local wastewater treatment plants (in all kinds of industrial parks, development zones, industrial gathering, etc.) with their wastewater treatment at Level II or above of the Discharge Standard of Pollutants for Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant.

3.11 Direct discharge

It refers to the action of a wastewater discharge company discharging water pollutants directly to the environment.

3.12 Indirect discharge

It refers to the action of a wastewater discharge company discharging water pollutants to the public wastewater treatment system.

4. Requirements on water pollutant discharge control

4.1 From July 1, 2014 to December 31, 2015, the existing companies shall follow the water pollutant discharge limits specified in Table 1.

Table 1 Water pollutant discharge concentration limits of existing companies

and unit product reference displacement

(Unit: mg/L, excluding pH and chromaticity)

Note 1: The indirect discharge limit of the unit product reference displacement for leather and fur processing companies is the same with its corresponding direct discharge limit.

4.2 From January 1, 2014, the existing companies shall follow the water pollutant discharge limits specified in Table 2.

4.3 From March 1, 2014, the newly established companies shall follow the water pollutant discharge limits specified in Table 2.

Table 2 Water pollutant discharge concentration limits of newly established companies and unit product reference displacement

(Unit: mg/L, excluding pH and chromaticity)

Note 1: The indirect discharge limit of the unit product reference displacement for leather and fur processing companies is the same with its corresponding direct discharge limit.

4.4 In accordance with the requirements of environmental protection work, in case that the land development is highly dense, environment carrying capacity begin to become worse, the environment capacity is small and the ecological environment is poor, which could result in serious environmental pollution, special protection measures should be taken in some areas, for example, the pollutant discharge of companies shall be strictly controlled, and any company to discharge wastewater to the said areas should comply with the special water pollutant discharge limits stipulated in Table 3.

The geographical scope and time of the special water pollutant discharge limits shall be stipulated by overseeing environmental protection administrations of the State Council and provincial People's governments.

Table 3 Special water pollutant discharge limits and unit product reference displacement

(Unit: mg/L, excluding pH and chromaticity)

4.5 Water pollutant discharge concentration limits are applicable to the case that the actual displacement of unit product is no more than the unit product reference displacement. If the actual displacement of unit product is greater than the reference displacement of unit product, the actually measured water pollutant concentration shall be converted into the reference displacement discharge concentration of the water pollutant according to Formula (1), and the reference displacement discharge concentration of the water pollutant shall be regarded as a condition whether the discharge meets the standard or not. The statistical period of the product yield and displacement is one day.

In case that production facilities of a company produce more than two kinds of products, different discharge control requirements or different national pollutants discharge standards of different industries might be applicable; in addition, in case that wastewater mixture generated from production facilities is disposed and discharged, the most strict concentration limit among relevant discharge standards shall be taken, and the reference displacement discharge concentration of the water pollutant shall be converted according to Formula (1).

(1)

Where:

ρReference - The reference displacement discharge concentration of the water pollutant, mg/L;

QTotal - Total displacement，m3；

Yi - The product yield, t;

QiReference - The reference displacement of unit product, m3/t raw hides;

ρActual – The actually measured water pollutant concentration, mg/L；

If the ratio of QTotal over is less than 1, the actually measured water pollutant concentration will be used as an indicator to determine whether the discharge meets the standard.

5. Requirements on water pollutants monitoring

5.1 A company shall establish company monitoring systems, stipulate monitoring programs, conduct pollutant discharge self-monitoring, save original monitoring records and publish monitoring results in accordance with the Measures of Environmental Monitoring and Management.

5.2 The requirements on installing pollutant discharge automatic monitoring equipment shall be met in accordance with the Management of Automatic Pollution Sources Control and relevant laws.

5.3 In accordance with relevant requirements of environment monitoring and management and technical specifications, a company should design, construct and maintain permanent sampling ports, sampling and testing platforms and pollution outlet signs.

5.4 Based on different kinds of pollutants, it shall be monitored in the specified pollutant discharge monitoring position; for the case with wastewater treatment facilities, it shall be monitored after the treatment facilities.

5.5 Whether the company's product yield can be approved, we should take the legal reports as the foundation.

5.6 The measures listed in Table 4 shall be taken as the standard measures to measure the discharged water pollutant concentration of a company.

Table 4 The standard of water pollutant concentration measurement methods

No.	Pollutant items	Standard method name	Standard method No.
1	pH Value	Water quality Measurement of pH value Glass electrode method	GB/T 6920
2	Chromaticity	Water quality Measurement of chromaticity Dilution multiple method	GB/T 11903
3	Suspended solids	Water quality Measurement of suspended solids Weight method	GB/T 11901
4	BOD5	Water quality Measurement of five-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) Dilution and inoculation methods	HJ 505
5	CODcr	Water quality Measurement of chemical oxygen demand Dichromate method	GB/T 11914
		Wastewater with high chloride Measurement of chemical oxygen demand Potassium iodide alkaline potassium permanganate	HJ/T 132
6	Animal and vegetable oils	Water quality Measurement of oil and animal and vegetable oils Infrared spectrophotometry	HJ 637
7	Sulfides	Water quality Measurement of sulfides Methylene blue spectrophotometry	GB/T 16489
		Water quality Measurement of sulfides Iodimetry	HJ/T 60
8	Ammonia nitrogen	Water quality Measurement of ammonia nitrogen Gas-phase molecular absorption spectrometry	HJ/T 195
		Water quality Measurement of ammonia nitrogen Nessler's reagents spectrophotometer	HJ 535
		Water quality Measurement of ammonia nitrogen Spectrophotometric method with salicylic acid	HJ 536
		Water quality Measurement of ammonia nitrogen Distillation - Neutralization titration	HJ 537
9	Total nitrogen	Water quality Measurement of total nitrogen Alkaline potassium persulfate UV digestion spectrophotometry	HJ 636
		Water quality Measurement of total nitrogen Gas-phase molecular absorption spectrometry	HJ/T 199
10	Total phosphorus	Water quality Measurement of total phosphorus Ammonium molybdate spectrophotometry	GB/T 11893
11	Chloride ions	Water quality Measurement of inorganic anions Ion chromatography	HJ/T 84
12	Total chrome	Water quality Measurement of total chrome Spectrophotometry	GB/T 7466
13	Hexavalent chrome	Water quality Measurement of hexavalent chrome Diphenyl hydrazine spectrophotometry	GB/T 7467

6. Implementation and supervision

6.1 The overseeing environmental protection administration of People's governments above the county level shall be responsible for supervising the implementation of this standard.

6.2 In any case, the company shall comply with the relevant requirements on pollutant discharge control of this standard, and take necessary measures to ensure the normal operation of pollution prevention facilities. When any environmental protection departments at different levels perform supervisory inspection of relevant facilities, samples can be collected or results can be monitored on site, and these samples and results can be regarded as the proof to determine whether the discharge action is in line with relevant discharge standards and relevant measures of implementing environment protection management. In case that the water consumption or displacement of any facilities is found to be abnormal, the amount of actually processed raw hides and displacement of the concerning company shall be checked, and the reference displacement discharge concentration of the water pollutant shall be calculated according to relevant regulations of this standard.