Are abandoned solar panel in landfills harmful?

The best way to dispose of waste solar panel is, of course, to enter the recycling and reuse process, thereby improving the reuse technology and the high value of recycled materials. However, before the relevant mechanism has been created, these old solar panel are mostly stored in piles or buried in the landfill. In the field, will the pollutants of these waste solar panel endanger human health? The International Energy Agency (IEA) study pointed out that it does not.

According to foreign media reports, the IEA will release the latest results on Task 12 for sustainable research this year. Garvin Heath, the person in charge of Task 12 and a senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), revealed that the team research pointed out that the solar panel in the landfill are unlikely to affect human health.

So how did they study it? The IEA's landfill research scenario is the worst case of lack of infiltration land (unlined landfill), waste and effluent. Among them, the collection and treatment of garbage seepage water is the focus of landfill environmental management, to avoid high-concentration organic substances, ammonia nitrogen, inorganic salts and trace heavy metals, leaking into groundwater or adjacent soil, causing environmental pollution, although solar panel have been Encapsulated with adhesive, there will be no self-dissolution or liquid leakage, but there will still be doubts.

They observed the main pollutants such as lead, cadmium and selenium in crystalline silicon, cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar energy. In this case, whether they will pollute the environment in large amounts, Heath pointed out that the worst In this scenario, the amount of pollution does not exceed the health screening threshold, which means that the risk is not so great, and no more detailed health risk assessment is required.