According to the model, the leaching efficiency depends significantly on the contact time, the interaction between the product of the H2O2 concentration, and the interaction between the malonic acid concentration and H2O2 concentration. Three-dimensional response surface plots indicate that higher leaching efficiencies than the 51% observed could be achieved with concentrations of malonic acid and H2O2 higher than the 0.5 and 1.0 M used respectively and with contact time longer than the 120 min experimented in this study. Computational study shows that the 2:1 malonic acid-Cu complex has lower energy and is more stable than the 1:1 complex. This study demonstrates the possibility of achieving appreciable leaching of Cu from minimally processed scrap PCBs using low concentrations of environmentally friendly leach solutions and it has laid a foundation for further investigations into the environmentally friendly and simple industrial-scale recovery of Cu.