The good news is that the Federal Government has announced it will invest $24.7 million over three years to deliver a national pilot for recycling solar panels and establish up to 100 pilot collection sites nationwide. [1]

And that the Productivity Commission recommends in its report (released on Friday 16 January) that “the government progress a national product stewardship scheme for small-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and investigate a similar scheme for EV batteries.” [2]

Solar panels are far from waste. Around 95 per cent of a standard solar panel can be recycled, including the aluminium frame, glass, silicon and valuable metals such as silver and copper. [3]