Solar panel recycling in Perth: what happens at end of life

Right now in Perth, there is no easy low-cost recycling drop-off for old solar panels. Most replaced panels still go to landfill, which is legal: standard crystalline silicon panels are treated as general waste in WA, not hazardous waste. Your practical options today are to recycle the aluminium frame as scrap, ask your installer whether they take part in a take-back scheme, or check your local council for an e-waste collection event.

That is the short answer. The longer one is more hopeful. A national product stewardship scheme already exists on a voluntary basis, recycling capacity is being built, and a mandatory federal scheme for solar panels is under development. WA's first wave of rooftop systems went up between 2009 and 2015, and many of those panels are now being replaced, so the volume that makes proper recycling viable is finally arriving.

What are solar panels made of?

A solar panel is mostly glass and aluminium, with a small amount of high-value material locked inside the cell. That mix is exactly why recycling is both worthwhile and fiddly.

• Glass (roughly 70 to 75% by weight): the tempered front sheet. It can be recovered as cullet for lower-grade glass uses, though solar glass has a specific composition.
• Aluminium frame: fully recyclable through the standard aluminium scrap stream. This is the easiest and most reliably recovered part.
• Silicon: only a few percent of the panel by weight, even though it makes up most of the active cell. Purifying it is energy-intensive, so recovered silicon usually goes into lower-purity products rather than back into new solar cells.
• Silver: used in the cell contacts. It is the highest-value recoverable material by weight, which is a big part of why dismantling a panel is worth doing at all.
• Copper: wiring and ribbon connectors, recyclable.
• Plastics (EVA encapsulant and backsheet): the polymer layers that seal the cell. These are the hardest to separate and are largely burned for energy or landfilled in most current processes.
• Lead and tin: small amounts in the solder joints. Older panels may use lead-tin solder, which is one more reason not to bury them.

What happens to old solar panels in Perth today?

Most of them go to landfill. When an installer pulls panels off a roof during an upgrade, a failure, or storm repair, the usual pattern is simple: strip the aluminium frame for scrap, send the panel body to general waste, and occasionally pass on still-working panels to the secondhand market.

This is legal because standard silicon panels are not classified as hazardous waste in WA. It is also wasteful. Landfilling high-purity silicon and recoverable silver throws away the most valuable parts of the panel, and the small lead content in older solder is a reason to handle them more carefully than ordinary rubbish.

If you are replacing or disposing of panels now, you have four realistic choices:

1. Landfill. Legal and cheapest, but the least responsible option.
2. Aluminium scrap for the frames. Most metal recyclers will take bare frames, so at minimum keep the aluminium out of the tip.
3. Ask your installer about a take-back or stewardship scheme. Some take part, though it may cost a little extra.
4. Check your local council. Some WA councils run e-waste drop-off events, and solar panels may qualify.

Is there a solar panel recycling scheme in Australia?

Yes, with limits. The federal government and the solar industry have been building a product stewardship framework for solar panels, and the current shape of it is:

• Voluntary today. A stewardship scheme operates on a voluntary basis. Manufacturers and importers who join contribute a fee per panel, which helps fund collection and recycling.
• Mandatory scheme in development. A regulated, mandatory product stewardship scheme for solar PV is committed to and under development at the federal level. The Clean Energy Council has called for a national mandatory scheme.
• Capacity is still limited. There is no dedicated solar panel recycling facility operating in WA as of mid-2026, so panels are processed in the eastern states.
• Recycling costs more than the scrap is worth, for now. Certified recycling runs to roughly $28 per panel, against about $4.50 to send it to landfill. Until volume and processing improve, that gap is the core problem.

For Perth homeowners, the takeaway is honest rather than rosy: there is no convenient, low-cost recycling pathway yet. The aluminium frame is easy to recycle, the rest is harder, and the situation should improve as volume grows.

How are solar panels actually recycled?

The process for crystalline silicon panels runs in roughly six steps:

1. Frame removal. The aluminium frame comes off first and goes straight into the standard aluminium stream.
2. Junction box removal. The plastic and copper junction box is taken off.
3. Glass separation. The laminate is heated or mechanically worked to split the glass from the cell and plastic layers.
4. Glass cullet. The recovered glass is reused in lower-grade glass applications.
5. Silicon and silver recovery. The remaining cell material is processed, often chemically, to recover silicon and silver. This is the most technically demanding and expensive stage.
6. Plastics. The backsheet and encapsulant are mostly burned for energy recovery or landfilled.

Recovery rates vary a lot by process, so treat any single figure as approximate. In well-developed processes the aluminium frame and the glass come back at very high rates, silver recovery is high, and the silicon is usually downcycled into lower-purity products rather than solar-grade material. The plastic layers are the weak point and are rarely recovered as material.

Can you sell or reuse secondhand solar panels in Perth?

Working panels pulled from an upgrade do have a second life, just not on a new grid-connected roof claiming fresh rebates. The buyers are off-grid and rural setups, community projects, shade structures, water pumping, and hobbyist 12V systems.

Two rules shape that market:

• No new certificates on used panels. Secondhand panels cannot claim new small-scale technology certificates (STCs), so they suit applications that do not rely on the rebate.
• Grid connection still needs accreditation. Putting any panel onto a grid-connected system, new or used, must go through an accredited installer and the standard approval process. Check the current Western Power requirements before assuming a secondhand panel can be connected.

Value is modest and depends on wattage and condition. A panel from a 2009 to 2015 system was likely rated around 150 to 250W and, after years on a roof, is probably producing about 80 to 90% of that today. Inspect before you buy: cracked cells, delamination, or hotspot damage can drop output well below the label, and comparing the original system's monitoring data (if you can get it) helps you judge condition.

Planning ahead when you install new panels

If you are putting in a new system now with a 25-year horizon, a few small steps make end of life easier later:

• Ask your installer which panel brands take part in stewardship schemes.
• Keep your installation paperwork, including panel serial numbers, which helps with future recycling registration.
• Ask whether the installer will handle end-of-life disposal as part of their service.

The recycling picture in Australia should improve substantially over the next 5 to 10 years as that first generation of systems reaches end of life in real volume and the mandatory scheme takes shape. For now, the most responsible thing a Perth homeowner can do when replacing old panels is ask the installer about take-back, and at the very least make sure the aluminium frames are recycled rather than buried with the panel body.

For more on the panels themselves, see our guides to how long solar panels last in Perth, solar panel degradation over time, and what end of life really means for a solar panel. If you are weighing up a system upgrade, adding panels to an existing solar system and planning a full solar system upgrade in Perth cover the decision in detail.