You’ve invested in building and maintaining utility-scale solar in the U.S. Your solar projects deserve a closed-loop recycling solution for their end-of-life.
The answer is zero-landfill solar panel recycling, giving you confidence that:
- Heavy metal contamination is safely eliminated prior to final material separation.
- No waste is generated.
- No part of the solar panel ends up in a landfill.
- 100% of a panel's useful materials are recovered for reuse without any worry over liability of heavy metal contamination downstream.
- Once solar panels leave your project, they won't end up being shipped overseas or stockpiled where they can still harm people or the environment.
Even “controlled” landfills pose a risk.
Leachate containing heavy metal contamination from stranded solar panels left in landfills or stockpiled on your project for too long can enter regional water systems, and even though you might see some claims that possible contamination from solar panels (and not all solar panel types) is too small to make a real impact, that is a risk no one truly wants to take when it comes to the environment, to human health, or company reputation.
The responsible move is zero landfill recycling that guarantees elimination of heavy metal contamination. Here’s why:
- Decomposes heavy metal contamination from plastics
- Eliminates environmental liability through transparency of the material handling chain and is certified through a stringent third-party protocol like SERI's R2v3 Appendices A, E, and G.
- Recovers 100% of reusable materials but sends no contaminants downstream and nothing to landfills
- Exhibits clear, transparent, auditable ESG and permitting leadership while reducing liability
- Supports a closed-loop clean energy economy
- In the Southwestern U.S. especially, knowing your end-of-life panels aren't ending up landfills also eliminates the possibility that they might contaminate shared aquifers like the Great Basin running beneath multiple states, because what gets buried in one region can impact water in another.
What Comstock Metals does differently:
- Fully decomposes heavy metal contamination that sticks to adhesives, encapsulate, all laminates at the start of our process, pre-final material separation
- Produces completely clean recovered materials for reuse
- Sends nothing to landfill—100% responsible recycling, 100% safe
- Matches or beats existing disposal costs at scale
- Certified via SERI under R2v3 Appendices A, E, and G protocol, validating where materials end up
- Optimal documentation and transparency for permitting, auditable ESG, and real community sustainability
With over 5 million solar installations already in the U.S., and over 600 million panels in use, we’re entering the first big wave of end-of-life replacements.
A commitment to zero landfill recycling creates trust in your supply chain, helps secure permits that are aligned with Universal Waste standards for handling end-of-life panels, and protects long-term value while eliminating contamination and waste risk.
Sources
US Solar Solar Market Insight Report, 2023
