Printed circuit board values decline

By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling

The average price of printed circuit boards declined in July to $7.37 per pound — off 1 percent from the month-earlier average and down over 5 percent since the start of 2012.

All metals that make up the printed circuit board index declined in average price in July save for copper, which posted a modest increase. Overall, the July price marks a 16-month low for the average value of circuit board scrap, which has declined steadily since peaking at $8.47 in August 2011.

Year-over-year, the value of scrap circuit boards declined 6.6 percent in July.

This data represents the full metallic values of boards over time and are not the recycling values, as those values do not include the costs involved in actually extracting metal from boards, including freight, sampling charges, assay assessments, smelting, refining, process loss, return on investment, and penalties for various elements, including beryllium, bismuth and nickel.

These values are for the estimated intrinsic metal content of recovered PC boards. Some consumers label such material as mid-value. Lower-value scrap includes monitor and television boards. Higher-value scrap includes network and video cards, and motherboards.

To return to the E-Scrap News newsletter, click here