EVALUATING RESOURCE EFFICIENCY FOR PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD WASTE SORTING AND TRANSFER PLANT USING MATERIAL FLOW COST ACCOUNTING

Abstract

This paper aimed to evaluate the resource efficiency of a printed circuit board waste (PCBW) sorting and transfer plant by identifying quantities of production loss and their associated true costs using the Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) technique. The results of this study are based on data gathered in 2019. The 5 types of waste material input transferred directly to the production system are, namely wastewater sludge, PCB border, PCB scrap, drilling PCB and punching PCB powder. The findings showed that positive and negative product costs were identified as 94% and 6% of the total cost, respectively. The greatest portion of the negative product cost resulting from system cost (SC) was 50% of the negative product cost or 3% of the total cost. Punching PCB waste was found to be the highest loss cost, about 54%. Regarding waste management loss cost (WC), all waste handling and disposal costs were attributable to two material losses, namely punching PCB residue and PCB scrap. Based on the overall results of this study, the resource efficiency of the PCBW sorting and transfer plant in terms of the ratio of the recoverable precious metal – copper (Cu) could be quantified as 0.94 which was in accordance with the positive product cost of MFCA technique.