EU DECLARES SOLAR PANELS E-WASTE

Solar modules now officially regarded as e-waste
30 January 2012 (PV Magazine)

"The EU Parliament has officially changed the guidelines for its WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive. Under the amendments, used photovoltaic modules must now be collected and recycled.

"Having found the commitment for the take back and recycling of photovoltaic modules by the solar industry too lax, the EU Parliament…voted for the collection of 85 percent of all end-of-life photovoltaic modules in Europe. Meanwhile, 80 percent must be recycled. As such, modules are now included under the WEEE Directive’s category four (Consumer Equipment and Photovoltaic Panels)…[T]he law has already been given internal approval by the [EU Council], but still needs to be officially recognized…"

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"The WEEE Directive requires all EU member states to implement the new law no later than 18 months after it comes into effect…[R]egulations stipulate that modules must be collected separately…[and recommend that] modules should be separated from other electrical products…[and] existing collection and recycling structures should be strengthened and expanded…

"The final photovoltaic module collection quota is still not clear, due to the fact that the amount of end-of-lifetime modules is anticipated to be very low over the next few years, and because the lifetime of modules typically extends to between 20 to 30 years. It is also still essential to differentiate between ‘collection rate’ and ‘recycling rate’…[L]ooking at the amount of installed modules in Germany over the past two years…around 15 gigawatts (GW)…[T]his will return around 1.5 million tons of scrap modules, when based on an estimated module weight of 100 tons per megawatt…"