Environmental and health assessment for California printed circuit board manufacturing: Providing guidance for pollution prevention opportunities

The objective of this study is to evaluate the utility of several established quantitative environmental and health assessment frameworks for guiding pollution prevention as applied to Californiapsilas printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing industry (Standard Industry Classification (SIC) code 3672). Aggregate industrial waste stream compositions are compiled through the support of the United States Environmental Protection Agencypsilas Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), which provides valuable quantitative information regarding specific regulated toxic substances that are released into the environment by industrial facilities. Application of these assessment tools may potentially be extended to other manufacturing industries to determine hazardous waste streams and reinforce priority pollution prevention targets.