Matthew Davies received funding from UKRI and EPSRC.

Swansea University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

Billions of solar panels around the world will soon be scrapped, but when they are discarded, the basic materials needed to make future panels are being wasted.

It is estimated that by 2050, the total amount of waste will reach 78 million tons. This is about 4 billion panels. However, the design of these panels does not allow us to easily extract the elements and reuse them, so most of the panels are likely to be shredded during recycling. This can contaminate the material, making it difficult to recycle.

Globally, there is an urgent need to design electronic products so that the materials contained in them can be easily extracted so that we can reuse them in new products and avoid waste. If we do not change the way we use materials, then we will limit the deployment of renewable and climate-friendly technologies that society urgently needs in the next phase and slow climate change. The materials we will need will be lost in the waste we create.

For the above-mentioned solar waste, if these materials can be effectively recycled, their estimated value will reach 15 billion U.S. dollars (11.2 billion pounds), and 2 billion new solar panels can be manufactured. It's not just economic benefits-70% of greenhouse gas emissions are related to the mining, manufacturing and use of commodities. If the world does not reduce this situation by reducing the material excavated from the earth, we will not be able to deal with climate change.

It is vital to avoid situations where technology must compete for materials, restrict deployment, and weaken society's ability to mitigate the climate crisis. For example, solar panels and low-energy lighting also require semiconductors, materials widely used in computer chips, and low-carbon cars also require magnets for wind turbines. Due to supply concerns, certain elements (such as indium) have been designed for emerging solar technologies.

Human beings have an insatiable appetite for the consumption of materials. By 2020, it is estimated that 100 billion tons of materials have been extracted from the earth, of which only 8.6% is recycled back to the economy. Since this e-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream on the planet, 53.6 million tons were generated globally in 2019.

The latest report by the sustainable development consulting company Giraffe Innovation and Swansea University shows that in 2019, the United Kingdom produced 1.6 metric tons of e-waste. It is estimated to contain 379,000 kilograms of key materials with a potential value of 148 million pounds. Due to lack of recycling infrastructure, poor scrap design, and inefficient recycling processes, most of the critical materials contained in the waste will be lost.

These key elements have not been effectively recovered and recycled, which means that the current technology is inherently unsustainable. The global recovery rate of the 30 key elements required for future technology is less than 1%.

A major design flaw is that we tend to "glue" things together and have no choice but to smash the product into small pieces of mixed materials that are difficult to separate. Recent research on increasing the recovery of key raw materials from discarded electronic products has highlighted another issue. The figure below shows a typical circuit board and the location of key materials. It shows the difficulty of extracting these key materials. First, they are scattered in a small amount on the entire line, and second, sophisticated equipment is required to identify the location of these elements. This is before the separation and recovery process can even begin. Better design is the key.

Need better end-of-life design, larger processing and recycling infrastructure to extract and reuse materials, and adopt circular economy methods. This is beneficial to consumers because the product is better designed, has a longer lifespan, and is easy to upgrade or repair.

Read more: What a sustainable circular economy looks like

In order to make emerging technologies truly sustainable, the world plans to extract key materials when the product reaches the end of its useful life.

There is an opportunity to design emerging technologies with circular economy in mind from the beginning. Waste should be regarded as a resource that brings maximum benefit to society and truly sustainable technology.

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