Abstract: Conventional cost accounting approaches cannot well reflect the loss cost of production processes, especially waste treatment costs. Using the material flow cost accounting (MFCA) which was based on the material metabolism balance, and on the basis of determining the system boundary of the production processes at the enterprise level, the flow and distribution of material cost, energy cost and waste disposal cost among all processes were calculated. By applying MFCA to the typical secondary zinc production process, the calculation indicated that material cost had the largest proportion in the total input cost, accounting for 76.16%. And waste management cost and energy cost accounted for 12.50% and 11.19% of the total cost, respectively. Controlling the zinc material losses of rotary kiln was the key factor to reduce production costs and improve economic efficiency, and the resource and energy saving and waste reducing were also beneficial to decreasing cost losses.