Equipment

What happens to solar panels at end of life?

A twenty-five-year answer to a question the industry has mostly not had to answer yet.

Updated September 2026 · Data as of EPA guidance and state statutes read on 2 and 3 September 2026

Written by HyreSolar Research team Research and analysis

Audited by HyreSolar Research team Data audit and fact check

75% of a module’s weight is glass EPA

1 US state with a manufacturer takeback mandate Washington

2031 is when that mandate starts blocking sales Not yet in force

The short answer

Less than the marketing implies, and the federal regulator says so plainly. A module is about 75% glass by weight, and glass recycling is a mature industry. But the EPA's own description of what current processes achieve is that "glass, aluminum, and copper may be recovered and the other materials, including the silicon solar cells, may be incinerated", and that while elements of the recycling process exist in the United States, "it is not yet happening on a large scale". The reuse market has "not yet gained traction" either. One state has legislated a way out of this: Washington requires manufacturers to finance takeback, free to the last owner, with an 85% reuse-and-recycling floor. Its deadlines are January 2030 for plans and January 2031 for a sales prohibition, so it has not bitten yet.

What a module is made of, and what that implies

Start with the composition, because it explains both the optimism and the problem.

Glass is about 75% of a module's weight, and as the EPA notes, "glass recycling is already a well-established industry". The aluminium frame, the copper wiring and the plastic junction box are also straightforwardly recyclable. On a weight basis, most of a solar panel is material the world already knows how to handle.

That is where the encouraging version of this story stops. The materials that make a panel a panel rather than a sheet of glass are the harder part. The EPA notes that "toxic metals like lead and cadmium may also be present in solar panels", and separately that modules contain critical materials including "aluminum, tin, tellurium, and antimony, as well as gallium and indium in some thin-film modules".

So there are two distinct reasons to recover a module rather than landfill it: some of what is in it is hazardous, and some of it is scarce and valuable. Those pull in the same direction but they are not the same argument, and the second is the one usually made.

The vocabulary, since most of it is legal rather than technical

Takeback programme: An arrangement under which the manufacturer, rather than the owner, is responsible for collecting a product at end of life. Washington’s is financed by manufacturers and free to the last owner or holder of the module.
Stewardship plan: The document a manufacturer files with the regulator setting out how it will meet the takeback obligation, including collection locations and performance goals. In Washington it must be approved before modules may be sold.
Universal waste: A hazardous waste category with simplified handling and storage rules, designed for widely generated items like batteries and lamps. Applying it to modules makes lawful handling easier rather than stricter.
R2 Standard and e-Stewards: Two third-party certification schemes for electronics recyclers. The EPA points to recyclers operating under one of them, which makes this a checkable credential rather than a marketing claim.
Reuse versus recycling: Reuse means the module goes on working somewhere else; recycling means it is broken down for materials. Washington’s 85% floor is a combined rate, so a plan can meet it either way, and the two have very different value.
Thin film: A module technology using materials such as cadmium telluride rather than crystalline silicon. It matters here because the constituents differ, which is why keeping your module model number is worth the effort.

What the regulator actually says happens today

The regulator's own account is the part that gets left out, and it is worth quoting rather than paraphrasing.

On scale: "The industry is new and still growing… Elements of this recycling process can be found in the United States, but it is not yet happening on a large scale."

On what the process recovers: "In these processes, glass, aluminum, and copper may be recovered and the other materials, including the silicon solar cells, may be incinerated."

On reuse: the secondary market "has not yet gained traction in the United States".

Read those together. Today's realistic outcome for a US module at end of life is that the bulk materials may be recovered and the functional part of the panel may be burned. That is a very different claim from "solar panels are recyclable", which is true as a statement about physics and misleading as a statement about what happens.

Washington is the only state that has made someone responsible

Most of the discussion about panel end-of-life is about what could be done. Washington is the one place in the United States that has written down who has to do it.

Its Photovoltaic Module Stewardship and Takeback Program starts from an allocation of cost. The legislative finding is that responsibility "must be shared among all stakeholders, with manufacturers financing the takeback and recycling system." That is the whole design in one clause: the manufacturer pays.

It is free to whoever holds the module at the end. A stewardship plan must include "a mechanism that ensures that photovoltaic modules can be delivered to takeback locations without cost to the last owner or holder". A homeowner is not asked to fund the disposal of a panel a manufacturer sold.

The scope is retrospective in a useful way. Each manufacturer must "accept all of their photovoltaic modules sold in or into the state after July 1, 2017". Panels installed in Washington from that date forward are within the programme, which covers a large share of what is currently on roofs there.

And it sets a floor rather than an aspiration. Plans must establish a rate of combined reuse and recycling as a percentage of total collected weight "which rate must be no less than 85 percent".

The Washington programme, and when each part bites

Provision	What it requires	When
Who finances it	Manufacturers finance the takeback and recycling system	The programme’s founding principle
Cost to the homeowner	Modules deliverable to takeback locations without cost to the last owner or holder	Part of every approved plan
Which modules	Manufacturers must accept all of their modules sold in or into the state after 1 July 2017	Retrospective to that date
Recycling floor	Combined reuse and recycling of no less than 85% of collected weight	Required in every plan
Plan submission	Stewardship plan filed with the Department of Ecology	By 31 January 2030, or within 30 days of first sale, whichever is later
Sales prohibition	No manufacturer, distributor, retailer or installer may sell a module in or into the state unless a plan has been submitted and approved	From 31 January 2031
Penalty	Up to $10,000 per sale after an initial written warning, appealable to the county superior court within 180 days	On enforcement
Downstream reach	Ecology must also warn a distributor, retailer or installer selling a non-participating manufacturer’s module; they may no longer sell or install it after 30 days	On enforcement
Transparency	Annual report to Ecology by 1 April, which must be posted on a publicly accessible website	Annually

Revised Code of Washington chapter 70A.510, Photovoltaic Module Stewardship and Takeback Program, read in full on 2 September 2026.

These dates are the current ones in the statute. The programme has been amended and delayed since it was first enacted, and earlier deadlines from the original version still circulate in secondary coverage. If a date matters to you, read the current chapter rather than an article about it, including this one.

California authorised something, and that is not the same as doing it

California is routinely described as classifying end-of-life solar panels as universal waste, a lighter-touch hazardous waste category with simplified handling rules. The description is close to right and the mechanism is worth stating precisely, because the imprecision matters.

The statute is short enough to quote in full: "The department may, by regulation, designate end-of-life photovoltaic modules that are identified as hazardous waste as a universal waste and subject those modules to universal waste management. The department may revise these regulations as necessary."

Read the first three words. The statute is permissive. It authorises the Department of Toxic Substances Control to make the designation by regulation. It does not itself designate anything. The provision was added in 2015 and took effect at the start of 2016.

So the accurate statement is that California's legislature authorised the classification and the department made it by rule. We could not obtain the regulation itself. Every departmental URL we tried returned an access error and no archived copy was found, so we are not publishing its citation, its effective date or the specific management standards it imposes. If you need those, the department is the place to ask.

And on the federal question we have nothing to offer either. Whether and when a module is federally a hazardous waste is a real question with real consequences for disposal, and the EPA page that would answer it did not resolve when we tried it. We would rather say that than guess.

What this means for a homeowner deciding today

Recycling’s current state would be easy to read as an argument against solar. It is not, and it is worth being clear about why.

The timescale is long and the position is improving. A system installed now will reach end of life in the 2050s. Washington's programme takes effect at the start of the 2030s. Whatever the disposal landscape looks like when your panels come down, it is very unlikely to be the one described on this page.

Weight is not the same as harm. A residential array is a couple of dozen modules. That is a real disposal question and it is a small one beside the material flows most households generate over twenty-five years.

What is fair to say is that the industry has been selling a twenty-five-year product for about twenty-five years, and the end of the first cohort is arriving now. The EPA's language about scale is a description of an industry that has not yet had to do this at volume. That is the honest frame: not a scandal, and not solved.

The practical implication for you is narrow. Do not accept "fully recyclable" as a reason to disregard end of life, because it describes a physical possibility rather than a current practice. And if you are in Washington, you have a statutory answer nobody else has, which is worth knowing you have.

Questions worth asking now, and what to do later

1
Ask the manufacturer whether it operates a takeback programme
Some do voluntarily. It is a fair question at purchase and the answer is a small signal about how the company thinks past the sale. Get it in writing if it is offered as a reason to choose them.
2
If you are in Washington, ask whether the manufacturer has filed a plan
Plans are due by January 2030 and reports must be posted publicly. A manufacturer that has engaged early is telling you something; one that has not, before the deadline, is not yet doing anything wrong.
3
Do not treat "recyclable" as an answer
It is a statement about materials, not about what happens. The EPA’s own description of current processes is that the silicon cells may be incinerated. Ask what specifically happens to the module, and to whom it goes.
4
Keep the module model number with your other documents
End of life is decades away and whoever handles it will need to know what the module is, particularly whether it is a thin-film technology with different constituents. It costs nothing to file now.
5
When the time comes, check the recycler’s certification
The EPA points to recyclers operating under the R2 Standard or the e-Stewards standard. That is a checkable credential rather than a claim, and it is the same kind of verification we recommend for choosing an installer.
6
Do not landfill without checking your state
Disposal rules for modules differ by state and are changing. Your state environmental agency is the authority, and this is one of the few areas where the answer genuinely may have changed since anything you read was written.

Method and limitations

What was read

The EPA's guidance on solar panel recycling, current as of its stated last update of 6 November 2025, for the composition, the hazardous and critical constituents, the description of what current processes recover, the statements about scale and the secondary market, and the recycler-certification guidance.

The Revised Code of Washington chapter 70A.510 in full, both sections, for every element of the takeback programme quoted above. California Health and Safety Code section 25259 in full, which is a single short paragraph.

Three things we could not verify

The California regulation itself. The statute authorises the department to designate modules as universal waste by regulation. Every departmental URL we tried returned an access error and no archived copy was located. We publish no citation, effective date or management standard for it.

The federal hazardous-waste position. The EPA page that would address whether modules are federally hazardous waste did not resolve when we tried it. We make no claim in either direction, which is unsatisfying and better than the alternative.

Any recycling rate, cost or capacity figure for the United States. We found none we could source. The one quantitative projection on the EPA page is a global recoverable-materials value that EPA attributes to another organisation rather than asserting itself, and we have not reproduced it as an EPA finding.

A dates caution specific to this subject

Washington's programme has been amended and its deadlines moved. Earlier dates from the original enactment still appear in secondary coverage and in articles written before the amendment. Every date on this page is from the current statutory text, and if it matters to a decision, read the chapter rather than any article, this one included.

Questions

Are solar panels actually recycled?

In the United States, not at scale yet. The EPA states that elements of the recycling process can be found here but that it "is not yet happening on a large scale", and that in current processes glass, aluminium and copper may be recovered while other materials, including the silicon solar cells, may be incinerated. "Recyclable" describes what is physically possible rather than what currently happens.

What is a solar panel made of?

By weight, about 75% glass, which is why the bulk of a module is straightforwardly recyclable. Also an aluminium frame, copper wiring and a plastic junction box. The EPA notes that toxic metals such as lead and cadmium may be present, and that modules contain critical materials including tin, tellurium and antimony, plus gallium and indium in some thin-film products.

Does any state require manufacturers to take panels back?

Washington does, and as far as we could establish it is the only one. Its programme requires manufacturers to finance takeback, to accept their modules sold in or into the state after 1 July 2017, to make delivery free to the last owner, and to hit a combined reuse and recycling rate of no less than 85% of collected weight.

When does the Washington programme actually start?

Stewardship plans are due by 31 January 2030, or within 30 days of a manufacturer’s first sale in the state if that is later. From 31 January 2031 no manufacturer, distributor, retailer or installer may sell a module in or into the state unless a plan has been submitted and approved, with penalties of up to $10,000 per sale after a written warning. So it is legislated and not yet biting.

Does California classify solar panels as hazardous waste?

The statute is narrower than that description. It authorises the Department of Toxic Substances Control to designate end-of-life modules identified as hazardous waste as universal waste, by regulation. The designation therefore lives in departmental rules rather than the statute, and we were unable to obtain those rules, so we do not state their citation or effective date.

Will I have to pay to dispose of my panels?

In Washington, a stewardship plan must ensure modules can be delivered to takeback locations without cost to the last owner or holder. Elsewhere it depends on your state and on what the market looks like decades from now. Do not assume free disposal, and do not assume an expensive one either; nothing we could source supports a figure.

How long do panels last before this matters?

Warranties commonly run 25 to 30 years and the physical life can be longer, so a system installed today reaches this question in the 2050s. That is the main reason not to over-weight the current state of recycling in a purchase decision: the industry has roughly two decades to build capacity, and one state has already legislated a deadline inside that window.

What should I do when the time comes?

Check your state’s current rules, because they are changing and your state environmental agency is the authority. Then check the recycler’s certification rather than its claims: the EPA points to recyclers operating under the R2 Standard or the e-Stewards standard, which is a verifiable credential.

Written and audited by

HyreSolar Research

Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking

We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the statute, the tariff, the code section, the federal filing or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it. Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. That rule has cost us whole sections, and it is the reason the rest can be trusted.

160: primary sources read and cited
220: figures with a retrieval date
115: federal and state government sources
66: researched pages published

How this desk works

Primary sources only. Statutes from the legislature’s own publishing system, federal data from the agency that collects it, code text from the adopted edition, manufacturer claims from the data sheet. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we go and read the source.
Every figure carries its provenance. A named document and the date we retrieved it, so you can check it and so you know how old it is. Retrieval dates are not decoration: an EIA rate from May is a different fact from an EIA rate from August.
We publish what we could not verify. Every research page carries a section naming the things we tried to establish and could not, and why. A paywalled standard, a state website that refused the request, a manufacturer that publishes no figure at all.
We separate measurement from modelling from our own reasoning, and label which is which on the page. A laboratory measurement, an assumption inside a modelling tool and our own inference are three different kinds of claim and they are never presented as one.
We do not sell solar, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favourable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.

Data as of EPA guidance and state statutes read on 2 and 3 September 2026. Authorship on this site is organisational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.

Sources & retrieval dates

US EPA, Solar Panel Recycling — Last updated 6 November 2025. Source for glass composing about 75 percent of module weight, the easily recyclable components, the presence of toxic metals such as lead and cadmium, the critical materials list, the statements that recycling "is not yet happening on a large scale" and that silicon solar cells "may be incinerated", the observation that the secondary market has not yet gained traction in the United States, and the guidance to use recyclers operating under the R2 Standard or e-Stewards. Retrieved 3 September 2026.
Revised Code of Washington chapter 70A.510, Photovoltaic Module Stewardship and Takeback Program — Read in full. Source for the legislative finding that manufacturers finance the takeback and recycling system, the requirement that delivery be without cost to the last owner or holder, the obligation to accept modules sold in or into the state after 1 July 2017, the 85 percent combined reuse and recycling floor, the 31 January 2030 plan deadline, the 31 January 2031 sales prohibition, the penalty of up to $10,000 per sale, the reach to distributors, retailers and installers, and the annual public reporting requirement. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
California Health and Safety Code § 25259 — Division 20, Chapter 6.5, Article 17 (Photovoltaic Modules), added by Stats. 2015, Ch. 419, Sec. 2 (SB 489), effective 1 January 2016. Quoted in full on this page. Source for the finding that the provision is permissive: it authorises the department to designate end-of-life modules as universal waste by regulation rather than making the designation itself. Retrieved 3 September 2026.

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