Project to enable plastics to be recycled together

Rapidly increasing solar photovoltaic (PV) installations has led to environmental and supply chains concerns. The United States relies on imports of raw materials for solar module manufacturing and imports of PV cells and modules to meet domestic demand. As PV demand increases, so will the need to mine valuable materials—a motivation for domestic reuse and recycling. Moreover, decommissioned PV modules could total 1 million tons of waste in the United States by 2030, or 1% of the world’s e-waste. This presents not only waste management concerns but also opportunities for materials recovery and secondary markets.