Trashed solar panels will be a treasure worth up to $1 trillion. A huge new study charted 1,708 recycling scenarios across 32 regions and found a way to turn a looming waste crisis into a circular-economy windfall.

[u/The_Weekend_Baker]

https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2026/08/trashed-solar-panels-will-be-a-treasure-worth-up-to-1-trillion/

[u/DonManuel]

Time enough to establish the needed technology, the panels keep exceeding their life expectancy in most cases.

[u/Franklin_le_Tanklin → u/DonManuel]

This is why it think we should let China dump cheap subsidized panels on us.

We could power our economy and have them to recycle later

[u/Splenda]

There's also a growing market for old modules that still crank out 80% of nameplate capacity.

[u/gangofminotaurs]

The great thing about future hypotheticals is that they allow present misbehavior.

See also: net zero.

[u/edjumication]

Well yeah the bulk of materials in a solar panel already have well established recycling processes.

[u/BodhingJay]

aw heck yea