BBC: “India’s solar boom faces a hidden waste problem”

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… trace toxic metals like lead and cadmium can pollute soil and water if mishandled …”

India’s solar boom faces a hidden waste problem

Nikita Yadav

India’s rapid solar energy expansion is widely hailed as a success. But without a plan to manage the waste it will generate, how clean is the transition?

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Solar growth has cut India’s reliance on coal. Though thermal and other non-renewables still supply over half of installed capacity, solar now contributes more than 20%. Yet the achievement carries a challenge: while clean in use, solar panels can pose environmental risks if not properly managed.

Solar panels are mostly recyclable, made of glass, aluminium, silver, and polymers – but trace toxic metals like lead and cadmium can pollute soil and water if mishandled.

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A new study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) estimates that India could generate more than 11 million tonnes of solar waste by 2047. Managing this would require almost 300 dedicated recycling facilities and an investment of $478 (£362m) over the next two decades.

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Damaged or discarded panels often end up in landfills or with unauthorised recyclers, where unsafe methods can release toxic materials. The BBC has contacted India’s renewable energy ministry for comment.

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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd6x75x4j02o

How insane is this? Three decades after lead was banned in gasoline, renewables have re-introduced the risk of lead contamination back into the environment through the challenge of disposing of millions of tons of e-waste.

Given illegal dumping is more likely to occur in rural areas, a disproportionate amount of that solar panel heavy metal contamination could end up in the human food chain.

Of course you don’t have to dump the panels in the countryside. In cities there is another cheap and nasty way to dispose of solar panels. Non-recyclable solar panel silicon, which contains much of the heavy metal contamination, can be burned in an industrial incinerator providing the incinerator temperature is above 750F. The ash from solar panels would look like high quality construction sand – the heavy metal contamination would not be obvious. I can easily imagine such contaminated sand being deviously inserted into the construction industry as cut price building material, ending up in play ground sand pits or being used to build homes and schools.

Surely it is time to review this ghastly new threat to our children’s health, before we end up with 10s of millions of tons of contaminated solar panel waste poisoning our kids.