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301 Moved Permanently

301 Moved Permanently


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Enacted in 2005, the German Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act (ElektroG) requires producers of electronic devices to take back their products when they are broken or at the end of their useful lives. In mid-2015, the law is expected to be extended to producers of photovoltaic systems as well.

The two motivations for the government to create recycling rules for electronic devices - soon to include PV - are the opportunity to recover useful materials and the responsibility to prevent hazardous materials from entering the environment.

First, we want to recycle the raw materials. This is very important so we can save our resources. The second is that some modules have cadmium, molybdenum and other hazardous substances in them. We have to take care that these substances stay in a closed circle and are not released into the environment.

ElektroG places the obligation on the producers to take their PV modules out of the market into which they sold them. The take-back service has to be free of charge for the private users of the PV modules.

An important result of the new law is that recycling and recovery has to become part of the calculation of the manufacturers’ costs, like production or logistics and so on. We had a discussion regarding the visible fee in Germany so that the manufacturers could put the visible fee on their accounts and get the money for the recovery and recycling from the users. But that discussion has not produced a rule, so there is no visible fee at moment.

 

Recycling part of total costs

When the law goes into effect, every private person will have the right to bring their broken or end-of-life PV modules to their municipal take-back point. The manufacturers then have to take the PV modules back from one of these take-back points to a recycling facility in Germany.

This is a dual obligation. The first part falls on the municipality to take the PV modules back from the user. The second part falls on the manufacturer to have the PV modules transported to a recycling facility certified to handle PV modules.

This deal was worked out during the legislation process. It is essentially a deal between the government and the manufacturers. The law covers so-called “historical waste” - products sold into the German market before the law went into effect. As a manufacturer present in the German market, you agree to abide by the deal as part of doing business.

This means existing PV plants would also be subject to the recovery rule once the provision for PV modules goes into effect.

The recycling law says the producer that sells a product in Germany is not allowed to take the material out of the country at the end of its life. The concern is that electronics might be shipped to third-party countries, where the poor burn them to get some valuable materials, such as copper or gold. For this reason, legislation prohibits the transport of untreated waste over the border. The manufacturer has to recycle the material in Germany.

There is a paragraph in ElektroG that specifies what technical standards a recycling plant has to meet and how its recycling processes are documented. This is the same for every electronic device, including PV modules.

VERE e.K (Vorstand des Verbands zur Rücknahme und Verwertung von Elektro und Elektronikaltgeräten), the association for the take-back and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment, works with existing recycling facilities to develop mechanical separation processes using mills and other recovery techniques to handle the materials that are part of the PV module. It is looking at the recycling processes for glass, which is about 80% of the module; aluminum; by-metals, such as copper, silver and others; and plastics, which are found in the back layer of many modules.

The solar glass can be reused in the glass industry, most of which goes to the building trades. The aluminum is used in the steel industry. The by-metals are used in precious metal foundries. As for the PV plastic, currently there is no really practical recovery methodology, so it is used in the recycling plants as an alternative fuel for energy production.

The main variations in the PV recycling process come with the difference between crystalline and thin-film modules. With crystalline modules, which are the vast majority of modules, there really is no problem with hazardous substances. Thin-film modules, however, contain some hazardous substances, such as cadmium.

VERE is looking for the best recycling processes. One requirement is that the plant be a closed-cycle facility so hazardous substance will not get into the environment. Such recycling plants are just now being built for thin-film processing, which remains a relatively small part of the total PV volume in Germany.

Because the ElektroG law is likely to be adopted throughout the European Union, VERE is also working with individual national partners among the 28 member states.

 

Going global

A big question is whether similar PV recycling laws are coming to North America. VERE has a partner in Canada that has a plant for recycling electronic devices, and we are exploring whether it is possible to modify that plant to also recycle PV modules in the future. We are hoping to perform test recycling runs there before the end of the year.

Cost is one of the main barriers to electronics recycling in the U.S. By our calculations, it is very expensive to recycle the modules in the U.S. - possibly $400 per ton. This is an extremely high cost. Crazy, even. In Germany, the recycling process currently costs between $30 to $50 per ton.

When we hear about such costs, the conclusion is that there would be no current market for recycling in the U.S. As a result, people take end-of-life PV modules and store them until a future solution presents itself.

The push to build up a recycling infrastructure for PV modules must come from the government. That is the only way it will happen because these are not products with large inherent value. So, a system should be built where the manufacturer pays the costs to recycle their products. Legislation is needed for such a program, with input from affected industries.

This was the situation in Germany for many industries, such as electronics, packaging, cars, oil and so on. There are different recycling processes and technologies for each. But in each case, the producers have the responsibility to take these things back and to pay for doing so. It should be the obligation of the PV producer to take their broken or end-of-life modules out of the market and out of the environment.

 

Oliver Friedrichs is a member of the board of the VERE association for the return and recycling of electric and electronic devices in Germany. He can be reached by email at info@vereev.de.

Industry At Large: End-Of-Life PV Recovery

German PV Recycling Law Likely To Set A Global Standard

By Oliver Friedrichs

Requirements aimed at recovering end-of-life PV products are intended to make a green industry even greener.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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