This feels important: a relatively clean way to recycle PV cells that’s under development at Wuhan, as described by John Timmer of Ars Technica
But the article from the US National Renewable Energy Lab that’s linked in the Ars Technica puts the whole PV waste potential into perspective. Even in 2050, without any recycling at all, it would be 1000 times less than coal ash and around half that of the delightfully-sounding “oily sludge”, both toxic byproducts of the oil and coal industries.
It feels similar to the arguments about EV batteries, too: the recycling technologies are either there or imaginable, but the market needs to develop in size (and regulation) along with it.
