While Indias solar power capacity is increasing, the country does not have a proper policy on managing the waste that is being generated from solar panels and its manufacturing process.
Currently, India considers solar waste as a part of its generated electronic waste and thus doesnt account for it independently. Also, the nation doesnt have any commercially operated raw material solar E-Waste recovering facility.
In Gummidipoondi, Nadu, a facility has been set up for the purpose of recovering solar e-waste recycling and recovery albeit it is a private firm.
In India, solar waste is sold as scrap and it can lead to the increase of solar e-waste if proper recycling is not done. The government should divert its focus towards drafting a set of rules that will look into dealing with solar e-waste.
The life cycle of a solar panel is 20 to 25 years, so the problem we are facing is yet to come, but when it will eventually catch up the nation will be dealing with a huge problem with most of the landfills being filled with solar waste. Hence, drafting a policy dealing with this is a must.