Recycling a utility-scale solar module in the United States costs between $15 and $45. Sending it to landfill costs between $1 and $5. That gap is the central problem facing the PV recycling industry, and it does not close without policy intervention, according to Philip Kwong, a researcher at the University of Adelaide who focuses on PV recycling economics.

“For most mainstream crystalline-silicon PV recycling today, commercial viability without extended producer responsibility mandates, landfill restrictions, or public subsidies remains difficult,” Kwong said. “The economics are driven by a simple problem: the recovered materials are generally worth less than the cost of collecting, transporting, dismantling, and processing modules.”

In “Recycling of photovoltaic modules: Technologies, comparative insights, challenges, and future outlooks,” published in Waste Management, Kwong and his colleagues identify silver and silicon as the primary value drivers in end-of-life crystalline silicon modules, which account for roughly 95% of the global installed base. But Kwong said current commercial operations largely fail to recover either at sufficient purity to justify the cost.

The viable near-term route, he said, is silver recovery at high efficiency and high volume, with labor, reagent, and energy costs kept low – a combination that remains achievable only in specific niches and under favorable assumptions.

The timeline for broader convergence is longer than the industry’s near-term planning horizons.

“Probably sometime in the early-to-mid 2030s for silver, and the mid-2030s for high-purity silicon, assuming current policy support and PV waste growth continue,” Kwong told pv magazine. “The challenge is not that the chemistry and engineering are impossible. It’s that today’s PV modules contain too little value per unit mass, and the materials are too tightly integrated, for recovery processes to consistently beat disposal or low-value recycling.”

Waste wave

The urgency of the problem is not in dispute. The International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA PVPS) estimates global end-of-life module volumes will reach 1.7 million tons by 2030 under regular loss scenarios, rising to as much as 8 million tons under early loss assumptions – where modules fail or are replaced ahead of their rated lifespan. By 2050, global waste volumes could reach 60 million tons under regular loss projections.

Commercial recycling operations are scaling, but unevenly. First Solar operates a closed-loop recycling program for its cadmium telluride modules – a fundamentally different chemistry from crystalline silicon – recovering more than 90% of semiconductor material and glass.

Veolia operates dedicated PV recycling facilities in France and Michigan. Redwood Materials, better known for lithium-ion battery recycling, is developing silicon and silver recovery processes for crystalline silicon modules. But none of these operators has demonstrated industrial-scale crystalline silicon recycling that closes the cost gap without regulatory support.

Europe’s WEEE directive remains the only framework that has made commercial recycling broadly viable, by mandating producer responsibility and creating the collection infrastructure that makes volume-based economics possible.

In the United States, Washington state passed the only EPR law for solar panels in 2017, with implementation requirements updated in 2025, though the scheme has faced friction from manufacturers and implementation remains in progress. New Jersey passed mandatory recycling legislation in January 2026 but deliberately stopped short of EPR, shifting cost responsibility away from producers. No federal framework exists.

The EPA has been working to reclassify end-of-life solar panels as universal waste under RCRA – a measure that would streamline handling and transport – but finalization has been delayed beyond the originally expected June 2025 target.

Kwong said a credible US or global framework would need to make recycling economically predictable before the 2030s waste surge arrives.

“A credible US or global PV recycling framework would need to make recycling economically predictable before the 2030s surge in solar-panel waste,” he said. “The core policy would be EPR, requiring manufacturers to fund collection and recycling. Supporting measures should include mandatory take-back programs, landfill restrictions, material recovery standards, and long-term regulatory targets. Recycled-content requirements for new panels and components would create demand for recovered materials, while design-for-recycling rules would reduce future costs.”

Kwong insisted that commercial viability is possible. “But it likely depends on capturing value from the entire end-of-life PV ecosystem rather than from recycling alone,” he said.