Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition Stopping the Solar Photovoltaic Waste Stream Before It Starts

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition Stopping the Solar Photovoltaic Waste Stream Before It Starts

Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is evolving rapidly to address today’s global climate and energy challenges. The industry’s dramatic expansion and its use of new and increasingly complex materials raise serious health and environmental issues, both in product manufacturing and throughout product lifecycles. A major concern is the fate of millions of PV panels currently in use.

The U.S. generates an estimated 2.2 million tons of e-waste annually…

Today’s solar PV sector bears striking similarities to the emerging electronics industry of the 1980s, when supposedly “clean” manufacturing plants polluted Silicon Valley groundwater, causing death and illness in nearby communities. The high-tech industry’s failure to plan for safe end-of-life product disposal has resulted in a global flood of electronic waste (e-waste). The U.S. generates an estimated 2.2 million tons of e-waste annually, and this will continue to grow with the industry’s rapid rate of technological change.i U.S. e-waste is currently shipped to the poorest parts of the world for manual disassembly and recovery of valuable scrap materials. It is anticipated that in 30 years the world’s poorest in cities like Nairobi, Delhi, and Manila (and also in U.S. prisons) may be sorting our solar PV waste.

The solar PV industry is poised to produce clean and renewable energy to meet the challenges posed by climate change. With the solar PV sector still emerging, we have a limited window of opportunity to address both manufacturing and end-of-life issues and create a truly clean and sustainable solar energy sector. Our failure to do so will risk repeating the disastrous environmental legacy of the electronics industry.

To ensure that this new industrial sector is safe and sustainable, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) is launching the Clean and Just Solar Industry initiative. As a leader in the fight for a clean and safe high-tech industry, SVTC brings more than 25 years of experience to the environmental, health, and safety issues now facing the solar PV sector. Modeled on SVTC’s landmark work in the electronics industry, the project’s goals are to ensure that:

• Solar PV manufacturers implement programs to take back decommissioned solar panels and recycle the panels responsibly.

• Manufacturers address potential end-of-life hazards in the product design and production processes. Requiring manufacturers to take back their own panels will create incentives to design products that can be recycled in a safe and cost-effective manner.

• Solar PV manufacturers work to eliminate the use of materials that are hazardous to human health and to the environment.

• Solar sector jobs are “green jobs” throughout the supply chain,ii and workers are treated in a socially just manner. The minimum acceptable guidelines would be those outlined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.iii

• Workers and communities are not exposed to harmful materials in the manufacturing, use, disposal, and recycling of PV products.

This fact sheet provides an overview of the potential hazards posed by current PV technology and lays out some of the challenges the industry faces in addressing end-of-life disposal and recycling. SVTC is also preparing an in-depth report that examines environmental, health, and safety impacts associated with the solar industry throughout the entire lifecycle of solar products.