QUALITY CONTROL
Conceria Tirrena bases its philosophy on clear and essential concepts, summarizing the commitment and passion employed during more than 60 years: for raw materials, high-quality materials, product excellence, and customer satisfaction. Quality control in the laboratory is based on these assumptions, which includes an evaluation of the resistance to mechanical stress, measuring of color fastness compared to external agents and determination of chemical parameters in relation to consumer health and safety requirements.
Certification bodies
1 – VISUAL CONTROL
The Visual Control is to ensure that the skins comply with the color standard, thickness and all the basic visual features, so that the leathers are appropriate for shipping. This stage is important for testing the main structural features of the leather as well as to evaluate and improve the various production processes.
2 – MECHANICAL CONTROL
The mechanical control provides a series of sample checks that, depending on the situation, make use of different techniques.
Tests for the mechanical and physical characterization of leathers for uppers and linings:
- – Measurement of thickness
- – Measurement of water absorption
- – Measurement of temperature shrinkage
- – Determination of tear resistance
- – Determination of leather’s strength and percentage of stretch
- – Determination of resistance to repeated flexing
- – Determination of permeability to water vapor
- – Determination of abrasion resistance
- – Determination of the resistance to sewing
- – Determination of absorption / desorption of water
- – Determination dynamic impermeability
- – Color resistance to perspiration
- – Color resistance to rubbing
- – Color resistance to water drops
3 – CHEMICAL CONTROL
Each lot sold by Conceria Tirrena is tested several times, both upstream and downstream of the tanning process, for it to be in conformity with the recent REACH regulation.
The Acronym REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals. The complete title is: Regulation (of the European Union) nr. 1907/2006 of the European Parlament and of the Council of 18th December 2006 for the registration, evaluation, authorization and possible restriction of some chemical substances, for the modification of Directives 67/ 548 / EEC and 1999/ 45 / EC and for the repeal of Regulation (EC) no. 793/93, of Regulation (EC) no. 1488/94, Directive 91/ 155 / EEC , 93/67 / EEC, 93/105 / EC and 2000/ 21 / EC .
Definitions (REACh – Dir . 67/548 EEC )
- Chemical substances:
They are the chemical elements and their compounds in the natural state or obtained by any production process, containing the additives necessary to preserve their stability and the impurities deriving from the process used, excluding the solvents that can be separated without affecting the stability of the substance or changing its composition.
Some substances may be present because normally used in the production cycle or used for the production of leather in countries where there are no restrictions on use. Their concentration in the final product should therefore be less than the limit set by law. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between prohibited substances and substances that are allowed but subject to limits.
Which substances are subject to restrictions in leather?
They are all those recognized as extremely harmful for human health, e.g.: toxic, carcinogenic, and dangerous for the environment. Whereas previously only manufacturers (provided they introduced the substance in the European market) and importers of new chemicals had to undertake all the complex processes of substance notification, now also manufacturers of substances not placed on the market, manufacturers and importers of existing substances and downstream users of chemicals are involved in the regulation.