Originally published by Noah Yim of The Australian.
15.04.2026
Australia faces a glut of old solar panels polluting the environment by leaching toxic chemicals into landfill with no viable reuse or recycling solutions available, the government’s own Department of Climate Change and Energy has warned.
The looming environmental crisis has sparked alarm among local councils and regional communities, which have accused the Albanese government of putting money into the rollout of renewable energy but not the decommissioning end of the process.
Australia, the world’s largest per capita adopter of solar power thanks in large part to Labor government subsidies, now faces its “first significant wave of end-of-life rooftop solar systems” but can’t process all the “hazardous” waste that would come from this, the department said.
A small percentage of solar panels thrown away today are recycled but a significant share likely will end up in landfill without a ban against the practice being instigated across the country.
“The remainder is assumed to be stockpiled, illegally dumped or exported”, the department said in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the matter.
The problem is instead being borne by lower levels of government and “more and more panels and other related materials are going to landfill”, the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors said.
Regional Development Australia Mid North Coast – one of the development forums the federal government put together – has lashed the federal approach.
“Funding the front end of the transition without funding the back end is an incomplete policy,” it said in a submission.
On Norfolk Island, the options for disposing of solar panels were to hold onto the unused solar panels to throw out later, throw them into the local landfill, or send them back to the mainland.
“None of these is acceptable as a long-term solution … solar panels contain lead solder, cadmium (in some technologies), and other substances … landfill of hazardous waste on a small island with a finite, unlined landfill poses unacceptable risks to groundwater and the surrounding marine park,” the RDAMNC said in its submission.
But the DCCE said both reuse and recycling appeared to be unattractive options.
On reuse, there was a “lack of financial incentive”, it said. “New systems outperform reused systems under most circumstances. Although second-hand panel costs are lower, other costs – such as transport, mounting, testing and installation and maintenance, as well as the reduced efficiency of second-hand panels – results in higher total private costs of approximately $4500 per year for a large system of 101kW or more,” the department said.
On recycling, it said it was “not generally economically viable”.
“Research commissioned by the department indicates nationwide recycling costs could vary significantly, from $266,000 to $1.16m per tonne of waste, depending on the type and efficiency of the recycling method,” the department said.
“This suggests that the high costs of large-scale, high-efficiency solar recycling, combined with significant transport and logistics costs, is not generally economically viable solely for the material recovery benefits.”
Adding to the issue, it said export demand was shrinking because of technological advancements, while solar panel owners were seeking to dispose of the panels before they wore out because of technological advances prompting them to buy upgrades.
The NSW government said in its submission the federal government’s home battery subsidy scheme had accelerated the issue.
“Over 18 per cent of 2025 solar panel installations were considered replacements of an existing system, increasing from 9 per cent in 2020,” it wrote.
Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan said this was “proof that solar panels are not renewable” and that the issue of solar panel disposal threatened to “become a huge problem for Australia into the future”.
“All these panels are made overseas using materials which will not recycle,” Mr Tehan said.
“So the government has to front up and tell Australians what they’re going to do with the huge waste that we’re going to be left with from these overseas-produced and manufactured solar panels.”
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen accused Mr Tehan of “spreading disinformation” and pointed to a $24.7m solar panel recycling pilot the government had put out a tender for.
“Dan Tehan is yet again showing how anti-renewables this Liberal Party is,” he said.
“Maybe he should stop spreading disinformation about solar panels and start coming up with some policies.”
