PCB segment enforcing clean guidelines

The China Printed Circuit Association or CPCA has released its first social responsibility standard, pushing for energy-saving practices, and carbon emission and energy consumption reduction. This is to align continuing efforts to boost production efficiency with the “green” trend.

Environmental protection has been one of the top priorities of China electronic components manufacturers in recent years, in compliance with directives in major markets. This covers materials acquisition to QC and waste management.
But even as many local companies meet the terms, a large number has yet to shift fully to clean production. It is for this reason that the government and CPCA are now making an aggressive effort to implement environment friendly guidelines across the board. CPCA believes that realization should start at the front end at resource utilization.

The clean production and energy-saving program covers four important areas: standards development, evaluation system, solution implementation and audition guide. The first was issued and implemented as early as last year by the Department of Environmental Protection and the Emission Standards for electronics, electronic components and PCB industries. It will now be mandatory, said Wang Longji, CPCA president.

This is critical to local PCB makers’ endeavor to overturn the line’s lackluster performance last year. The sector registered its first negative growth, losing out to China-based foreign competitors. Output of homegrown companies accounted for less than a third of the country’s total sales. Suppliers believe addressing safety and ecological issues will ensure an industry rebound.

Makers are now in the process of adopting such measures, including improving designs and increasing the utilization rate of boards and accessories. This extends to working out production plans and upgrading old equipment to enhance power consumption. Water reflux utilization, and waste etching liquid and low copper content wastewater recycling are also being adopted.

To reinforce the benefits of compliance, CPCA emphasizes its economic returns. Based on statistics from the association, more than 100 makers spent $7.9 million to cut waste emission last year and in the process were able to save about $12.8 million in production costs.

In addition to these efforts, CPCA is encouraging the government to establish a PCB industry zone that will support waste process initiatives, logistics and storage. This way, companies can concentrate on production and R&D to increase efficiency.

Wang hopes about 15 PCB industry zones will be the recipient of such assistance package in the next five years.