The innovative approach of reducing the tannery pollutant load involves (a) the segregation of the various streams (beam house waste stream and tanyard waste stream); (b) first stage beam house waste pretreatment: recycle of carbon dioxide in the stack flue gas for removing the protein, BOD, and COD from the beam waste stream, and recovery and reuse of the recovered protein; (c) second stage beam house waste pretreatment: addition of ferrous sulfate to the carbonation effluent for removing the sulfide, BOD, COD and TSS; and recovery of ferrous sulfide waste sludge; (d) total pollutant reduction from the overall beam house waste pretreatment: TSS (87 %), COD (41.6 %), BOD (39.8 %), chromium (99.82 %), sulfide (99.94 %); (e) first stage tanyard waste pretreatment: screening removal of large substance, TSS, etc.; (f) second stage tanyard waste pretreatment: reuse of ferrous sulfide waste sludge for the removal of toxic chromium and other heavy metals and in turn, the release of ferrous ions; reuse of ferrous ions as coagulant; and separation of chromium sulfide sludge, BOD, COD, TSS by dissolved air flotation (DAF); (g) total pollutant reduction from the overall tanyard waste pretreatment: TSS (93.2 %), COD (62.9 %), BOD (64.3 %), chromium (99.97 %), sulfide (99.10 %); (h) combination of both the beamhouse waste pretreatment effluent and the tanyard waste pretreatment effluent for the end-of-the-pipe treatment by biological process, DAF and membrane filtration; and (i) development of a new flotation-membrane bioreactor (FMBR) process including the required biological process, DAF and membrane filtration for overall cost saving in the final end-of-the-pipe treatment.