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86 The PCB Magazine • June 2016 Green Process Technologies The opportunities for designing out toxic chemicals and implementing chemical and water recycling are tremendous in the PCB in- dustry, yet few factories realize these solutions. Most recycling systems max out at around 75% recycling due to increasing costs and dimin- ishing returns. The reason for this upper limit is that the conventional technologies (mem- brane systems and ion exchange) also produce large quantities of brine either continuously or through regeneration—and this by-product can be quite expensive to treat. THE 21ST CENTURY PCB FACTORY—DESIGNED TO ELIMINATE OFFSHORE COST ADVANTAGES The key to achieving an economical zero liquid discharge PCB fab plant is to properly re- search each waste stream, adjust its attributes if necessary, and segregate streams to achieve the most efficient overall solution. Control of the waste stream at the point of generation is the key to achieving high efficiency. Additionally, chemical suppliers invariably sell chemicals that will become "spent" and need to be replaced by fresh chemicals. They in fact research how to make them optimally become spent (think of the former Tobacco Institute, Inc.). Without this, they cannot make money. With a little bit Figure 7: Example of consolidated live web list of action items. Figure 8: Typical top high-impact environmental waste streams in a PCB fabrication operation.