Environmental Impacts of Recycled Nonmetallic Fraction from Waste Printed Circuit Board

Recently in Thailand, the recycling process of waste printed circuit board (WPCB) has retained a large volume of nonmetallic fraction (NMF), which has entered the industrial waste stream and awaits an appropriate treatment to be suggested. The aim of this paper was to assess environmental impacts of the recycled nonmetallic fraction from waste printed circuit board in Thailand, using the ReCiPe midpoint assessment method of life cycle assessment approach. For this purpose, one of the glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) manufacturers in Thailand was selected to obtain data for NMF waste and the production of two new recycled NMF products. The environmental impacts of two new recycled NMF products compared with traditional GFRP product, and two recycled NMF products compared with conventional waste disposal methods by means of landfilling and incineration were considered. The result showed that the potential environmental impacts were in the damage categories of climate change, human toxicity, marine ecotoxicity, and fossil depletion. For overall comparison, the recycled NMF as a modified GFRP product (recycled product 1) showed the worst impacts to human toxicity, marine ecotoxicity, and fossil depletion categories compared with other methods because of the complex production technique and the chemical-based process. Moreover, the recycling of NMF as a new product (recycled product 2) is likely to be the most suitable waste management option in Thailand.