Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Printed Wiring Board Value Drops Again


The gross value of printed wiring board scrap in September 2008 hit its lowest price in over a year, at $3.98 per pound. Though down 11.5 percent from the August figure, the price was up 5.9 percent when compared to September 2007. The average value of board scrap for the first three quarters of the year was $4.58 per pound, a 28.1-percent improvement over the same period last year.

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.
The March 2008 printed-wiring board value, at $5.03 per pound, was the highest in almost seven years, with the lowest, at $1.62 per pound, in November 2001.
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Source: E-Scrap News 10/08/2008