Industry welcomes proposed NSW solar panel recycling scheme

The NSW Government is consulting on the country’s first mandatory solar panel recycling scheme to ensure valuable solar panel materials are recovered, reused and recycled.

The state has more than 1.18 million rooftop solar systems across homes, businesses, schools and community facilities. As these systems age, increasing numbers of solar panels are ending up in landfill. Each year, around 14,000 tonnes of solar panel waste is generated in NSW. This is predicted to increase to 89,000 tonnes by 2045.

The proposed mandatory product stewardship scheme would require solar panel brand owners to take responsibility for the end-of-life management of their products, helping fund collection, recycling and resource recovery across the state.

“NSW has embraced rooftop solar, and now we’re making sure those panels don’t become tomorrow’s landfill problem. Solar panels contain valuable materials that can be recovered and put back to work,” said Minister for the Environment Penny Sharpe.

“A mandatory product stewardship scheme can help build a circular economy for solar panels, while supporting new recycling and manufacturing opportunities here in NSW.”

By recycling solar panels, valuable resources can be captured, potentially creating new economic opportunities. Materials such as aluminium, glass, silicon, copper and silver can be recovered and reused in new products.

The Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR) has strongly welcomed the state government’s move to establish Australia’s first mandatory product stewardship scheme for solar panels.

WMRR CEO Gayle Sloan said the proposal recognises a fundamental principle: those who design, manufacture and supply complex products must share responsibility for their entire lifecycle.

“Solar panels are precisely the type of complex product that shows why stewardship matters. We will not create a circular economy simply by finding somewhere to recycle a product once it becomes waste,” Sloan said.

“Stewardship changes the economics. It creates the incentive to make products last longer, to design them for repair, reuse and recycling, and to recover valuable materials at the end of their first life rather than continually extracting virgin resources.”

The NSW Government has released an issues paper alongside the draft regulation. The feedback will inform the design of the mandatory product stewardship scheme.

Submissions are now open. For more information and to have your say, visit https://yoursay.epa.nsw.gov.au/solar.

Image credit: iStock.com/alexsl