вЂњWe believe the big blind spot in the US for recycling is that the cost far exceeds the revenue,вЂќ Meng said. Vanderhoof, meanwhile, says that the cost of recycling that panel in the US is between $12 and $25-after transportation costs, which вЂњoftentimes equal the cost to recycle.вЂќ At the same time, in states that allow it, it typically costs less than a dollar to dump a solar panel in a solid-waste landfill. (Because the vast majority of that mixture by weight is glass, the resultant product is considered an impure, crushed glass.) Tao and his colleagues estimate that a recycler taking apart a standard 60-cell silicon panel can get about $3 for the recovered aluminum, copper, and glass. Recyclers often take off the panelвЂ™s frame and its junction box to recover the aluminum and copper, then shred the rest of the module, including the glass, polymers, and silicon cells, which get coated in a silver electrode and soldered using tin and lead. And if we fail to develop those solutions along with policies that support their widespread adoption, we already know what will happen.ДЄt a typical e-waste facility, this high-tech sandwich will be treated crudely. Recovering the most valuable materials from one, including silver and silicon, requires bespoke recycling solutions. While the latter number is a small fraction of the total e-waste humanity produces each year, standard electronics recycling methods donвЂ™t cut it for solar panels. By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects that up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life, and that the world will be generating about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually. They are also complex pieces of technology that become big, bulky sheets of electronic waste at the end of their lives-and right now, most of the world doesnвЂ™t have a plan for dealing with that.Д«ut weвЂ™ll need to develop one soon, because the solar e-waste glut is coming.

Solar panels are an increasingly important source of renewable power that will play an essential role in fighting climate change. This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

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