Most tanneries in Ethiopia (90%) do not treat and very few (10%) partially treat their effluentrnbefore discharging it into the receiving water bodies, therefore, untreated leather effluent causesrntremendous pollution of water resources in the country, especially due to its high organic loadingrnand chromium content. Thus, proper treatment to eliminate or reduce the problem has to berndevised. The purpose of this study performed at Addis Ababa Tannery Sh.Co. was to develop anrnalternative technical process for removing and recovering trivalent chromium from tanneryrnwastewater via chemical precipitation. Chromium(III) salts are the most widely used chemicalsrnfor tanning processes, but 60-70% of total chromium salts reacts with the hides. In the otherrnword, about 30-40% of the chromium amount remains in the solids and liquid wastes (especiallyrnspent tanning solutions). Therefore, the removal and recovery of the chromium content of thesernwastewaters is necessary for environmental protection and economic reasons. To this purpose,rnthree precipitating agents; calcium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide and magnesium oxide werernused. The effects of pH, stirring time, settling rate and sludge volume were studied in batchrnexperiments. Flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS) method was used to determine Crrnconcentration. The results NaOH(99.973%), Ca(OH)2(99.97% ) and MgO( 99.98%) showed thatrnremoval efficiencies at optimum pH values were not significant. However, there is significantrndifference in sludge characteristics with sludge volume of NaOH (590 mL), Ca(OH)2(412 mL)rnand MgO(85 mL). The optimum pH is 9.8-10.3 with removal efficiency of 99.98% and the goodrnsludge with high settling rate and lower volume was obtained by MgO precipitating agent. Hencernthe MgO is a good precipitating agent for removal and recovery of chromium from tanningrnwastewater. The basic chromium sulfate (BCS) recovered at pH 2.8 is suitable for tanning mixedrnwith fresh BCS from the market.rnKey words: Chromium, removal, recovery, chemical precipitation, tannery wastewater