SPR, SEIA launch residential solar drop-off program

SolarPanelRecycling.com (SPR) and the Solar Energy Industries Association are launching a partnership program with Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, to establish convenient drop-off locations for end-of-life residential solar panels.

The partners say the pilot program will act as a blueprint for expanding the program nationally to make solar panel recycling accessible to all residential solar owners.

SEIA, based in Washington, says after fielding a high volume of inbound calls from residents wanting to divert their solar panels from landfills, the national trade association for the solar and storage industries sought out SPR—one of its approved national photovoltaic (PV) recyclers—to use its already-established collection point infrastructure for a residential program. North Carolina will serve as the flagship state for the six-month pilot, which aims to provide SEIA with key insights to create a template for other municipalities across the country.

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“For any recycling industry discipline, the residential sector is always the hardest to serve due to the collection costs of unconsolidated recyclables, but cumulatively to prevent panels from reaching landfills,” says Brett Henderson, CEO of Salisbury, North Carolina-based SPR. “With our already established residential drop-off sites, it was a natural fit to work with SEIA and Mecklenburg County to add this additional service. As part of our mission to keep all solar panels out of landfills, we want this program to serve as a blueprint for other regions to adopt residential solar panel recycling nationwide.”

The program will take advantage of five electronic drop-off locations across Mecklenburg County, including SPR’s Salisbury headquarters. As all sites already have electronic collection infrastructure and pickup scheduling in place, the program will provide the benefit of solar panel recycling at no cost to residents and with no additional carbon emissions.

“Solar panel collection sites like those in Mecklenburg County are paving the way towards a circular economy driven by the sustainable use and reuse of clean energy resources,” SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper says. “Thanks to facilities like these, solar panel recycling capacity in the U.S. now exceeds the volume of decommissioned modules entering the waste stream and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.”

Mecklenburg County residents or installers can drop off their end-of-life panels at the Compost Central Recycling Center at 140 Valleydale Road in Charlotte to participate in the recycling program. Over the coming weeks, they say the remaining drop-off locations will be open for residential use. Once the program is complete, SEIA will use the data points gathered, such as the number of panels recycled, recovery rates and landfill diversion to inform a more robust expansion of the program into other regions.

“Mecklenburg County works to be a leader in responsibly managed resources,” says Jeffrey Smithberger, solar waste director of Mecklenburg County. “Part of this work centers around being good stewards of our environment and lessening dependence on landfills. Partnering with others to find creative methods of recycling old solar panels is very desirable to keep these items out of our landfills. The process also makes it easy for our residents to recycle these special items at our existing recycling centers and we’re excited to initiate this new process.”

Mecklenburg County residents with 10 panels or less may visit any of the six drop-off locations to complete the process. Those with more than 10 panels should register with solidwaste@mecknc.gov first. For commercial solar panel recycling, SPR recommends contacting info@solarpanelrecycling.com.