"No Liability" Solar Panel Recycling for Industrial-Scale Solar Generators

Why Zero-Landfill Solar Panel Recycling Should Be Your End-of-Life Standard 

As solar energy scales across the U.S., the next big challenge is one we must solve together: what to do with end-of-life panels. 

By 2030, over 33 million panels a year will need to be decommissioned. By 2050, that number will be in the hundreds of millions annually. If those panels end up in landfills, the risk isn’t just local—it’s regional and national. 

Why it might matter to you: 

• Solar panels contain adhesives, encapsulates, polymer back sheets. Heavy metal contamination occurs when heavy metals stick to these materials if not eliminated safely pre-material separation and that contamination can leach into groundwater when landfilled. 

• What happens in one state can affect water, health, and agriculture in others. And when there is no market for recovered materials tat contain heavy metal contamination, these materials are often stockpiled or shipped to Asia, creating liability risk.  
  

Drone panorama over a solar power plant in the Nevada desert. 

You already share the grid—protecting our shared water feels like the right thing to do. 

With aquifers running under multiple solar-heavy states (like Nevada, California, Utah, Texas, and Arizona), contamination anywhere is a risk everywhere. That’s why zero-landfill solar panel recycling should be the new normal. And now that we are serving some of the largest energy companies in the U.S. and earned the trust as a preferred end-of-life management partner to some of the largest solar projects in the country, we are scaling fast and keeping our eyes on the zero-landfill, clean material promise. 

Here’s how Comstock Metals helps project owners protect the environment: 

• We eliminate 100% of contamination risk through our proprietary delamination process by eliminating heavy meal contamination pre-material separation.  

• We send zero materials to landfill and we do not generate any additional waste in our recycling process. 

• We recover 100% of all useful clean glass pearls, aluminum flakes, and metal tailings for safe, liability-free reuse—supporting a more sustainable and closed-loop resource solar supply chain for a cleaner, more efficient clean energy system. 

This isn’t just responsible recycling—it’s resource management stewardship. 

And as states adopt Universal waste handling rules for solar panels—like California and Hawaii, and the EPA prepares new federal regulations for 2026, a zero-landfill solar recycling solution gives you a head start on compliance and permits, and transparent reassurance for your investors and community partners. 

A More Sustainable Choice

Communities and projects that support a zero-landfill solar recycling commitment aren’t taking on a problem—they’re solving one. That’s true whether the project is in your home county or one you partner with across the region. 

• Protect shared water supplies 

• Reduce landfill use 

• Enable material recovery and reuse 

• Support the solar brand as responsible, clean, safe, and closed loop 

For your projects. For your neighbors and energy customers. For a more sustainable clean energy system and peace of mind. 

Sources

Image: Intersecting borders of Nevada, California, and Arizona. 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Managing End-of-Life Photovoltaic Panels.” EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) 2021.  

National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “Photovoltaic Decommissioning and Recycling.” NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) 2019.  

Solid Waste Association of North America. “Cost of Landfill Disposal in the United States.” SWANA 2022.  

International Renewable Energy Association, “End-of-Life Management of Solar Photovoltaic Panels,” June 2016.