Trashed solar panels will be a treasure worth up to $1 trillion
A huge new study charted 1,708 recycling scenarios across 32 regions and found a way to turn a looming waste crisis into a circular-economy windfall.
Solar power installations are rapidly increasing worldwide as costs continue to drop, with studies suggesting it could become the dominant energy source by 2050. However, the end-of-life phase of photovoltaic (PV) panels poses a significant waste problem, with an estimated 297 to 402 million tonnes of discarded panels projected by 2060.
A new study published in Nature highlights that recycling these panels properly could yield nearly $1 trillion in economic benefits globally, with potential for equitable distribution. Currently, most PV panels end up in landfills, where they can leach toxic heavy metals like lead and cadmium into the environment. Valuable materials such as silicon, silver, copper, and tellurium are present in these panels and could be reused to create new ones.
Yet, current commercial recycling technologies struggle to recover these materials at a sufficient purity level, and industrial-scale recycling operations are lacking. While high- and middle-income regions like the EU, the US, China, Japan, and South Korea have the capacity to recycle most of the world's solar panels, low-income regions lack the expertise and capabilities, relying instead on outsourced recycling.
The researchers conducted a computer model analysis of 1,708 recycling scenarios across 32 global regions, taking into account recycling technologies, material prices, international trade, and subsidy policies. Their findings indicate that combining region-specific recycling technologies with outsourced recycling strategies yields the highest benefits, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 3.32 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent and generating a net benefit of $530 to over $935 billion by 2060.
Yet, these advantages would primarily benefit upper-middle-income regions with advanced recycling technologies. The researchers propose a declining subsidy model to make recycling more equitable and advocate for international cooperation mechanisms like the Paris Agreement to prioritize technology transfer and targeted funding for developing recycling capacity in low-income regions.
Written by urgent.news from Anthropocene Magazine's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
