California’s Subsidized Solar Panels Are Now Leaking Toxins Into The Groundwater

According to The Los Angeles Times, the “25-to-30-year life cycle” of these previously installed panels have reached the end of that term date, but researchers are discovering that these panels are ‘winding up in landfills, where in some cases, they could potentially contaminate groundwater with toxic heavy metals such as lead, selenium and cadmium.’

An expert in the field told Yahoo that 10% of these used panels end up in a recycling plant, while the rest are contributing to “truckloads of waste” at typical landfills.

The industry is supposed to be green. But in reality, it’s all about the money.

Sam Vanderhoof, a solar industry expert and chief executive of Recycle PV Solar told The LA Times

The LA Times went onto to emphasize, citing other professionals in the field, that the public is very miseducated and ignorant on what goes into making a solar panel, and their deconstruction for recycling purposes.

There’s an informational gap, there’s a technological gap, and there’s a financial gap that we’re working on.

Said Amanda Bybee, co-founder of SolarRecycle.org.

This trash is probably going to arrive sooner than we expected and it is going to be a huge amount of waste. But while all the focus has been on building this renewable capacity, not much consideration has been put on the end of life of these technologies.

Serasu Duran, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business in Canada

Moreover, The LA Times notes:

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Recycling solar panels isn’t a simple process. Highly specialized equipment and workers are needed to separate the aluminum frame and junction box from the panel without shattering it into glass shards. Specialized furnaces are used to heat panels to recover silicon.

In most states, panels are classified as hazardous materials, which require expensive restrictions on packaging, transport and storage. (The vast majority of residential solar arrays in the U.S. are crystalline silicon panels, which can contain lead, although it’s less prevalent in newer panels.

Thin-film solar panels, which contain cadmium and selenium, are primarily used in utility-grade applications.) [AJ] Orben, [vice president of We Recycle Solar] said the economics of the process don’t make a compelling case for recycling.

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And even if these panels were collected and managed with more equity, it still does not change the processing and where the deconstructed materials ultimately end up.

What that [rule] does is really just changes how that material is handled, managed, stored, and transported. It doesn’t change how that material is actually processed.

Orben added

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

This is nothing new to regular readers of The WinePress, as The WP has reported on how these solar panels (especially in bulk amounts), are not only anti-environmentally-friendly, they are also detrimental to our health, and the health of animals and wildlife; along with so many other things that are labeled as being “safe” for the environment.

Study Reveals That “Green Technology” Toxicity Seeps Into Our Bones

Green Climate Initiatives Are Destroying Australia’s Grasslands

The Move To Blue Hydrogen Energy Is Worse Than Oil And Coal

European Commission Faces Lawsuit For Trying Push Nuclear Energy As “Green”

And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.

Revelation 11:18

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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