ABSTRACT

An investigation was carried out on microbial species associated with selected deteriorated leather products. The study was carried out in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU), Abia State. Leather products ranging from shoe leather, belt leather and bag leather products were collected following the method of International Science Congress Association (IS:5868-1969 methods). Unused and unprocessed samples were bought from Power Line Shoe Industry, Ariaria Market, Aba. Five (5) different deteriorated finished leather samples were collected from students of MOUAU and transferred to Microbiology Laboratory within 2hrs of sample collection. The total viable counts of the deteriorated leather samples showed counts for THPC to be highest in used leather bag sample with 7.4 x 10⁵ and lowest in unused chair leather with 3.0 x 10⁴, for TCPC, the highest value was found in used leather sandal and used processed snake leather with 6.9 10⁵ and lowest in unused belt leather with 35 x 10⁴. TSPC count was highest in unused processed snake leather and lowest in unused sandal leather while the TFPC was highest in used leather bag and lowest in unused chair leather. The results reviewed that the bacterial isolates to be Bacillus species, Escherichia coli, Serratia marcesens, Proteus species and Staphylococcus aureus. The results of the distribution of the isolates from deteriorated leather showed that Staphylococcus aureus and Aspergillusfumigatus occurred in all used leather samples and have the highest occurrence on all used leather samples. The occurrence of Aspergillus fumigatus was low in unused leather which had Rhodotorula spp, Escherichia coli, Proteus spp and Mucor spp as the highest occurrences. Statistical analysis using T-test statistical package showed that there were significant (p