Life cycle assessment of a novel metal recovery method from co-processing of coal mine waste and low-grade printed circuit boards

A double waste stream problem arises from the increasing use of electrical and electronic equipment and their energy consumption: potentially toxic wastes from the equipment itself and potential acid mine drainage from the waste of the coal mines that provide the fuel to cover the energy demand. CEReS (Co-processing of Coal Mine & Electronic Wastes: Novel Resources for a Sustainable Future) is a novel method to co-process the coal mine and low-grade PCBs waste to reduce their environmental impacts while producing metals and other valuable prod-ucts. The aim of this study is to investigate whether CEReS method is more environmentally friendly than the conventional practices of landfilling and incineration. Based on a Polish coal mine case study, our study found that the CEReS method could potentially eliminate the environmental impacts related to toxicity but increase the climate change impacts by ten times. A sensitivity analysis has shown that using a lower carbon electricity mix could reduce the climate change and fossil depletion impacts. It is also recommended to reduce water and energy requirements in some stages of the method.