00:00Australia's solar success story is creating a looming waste crisis that the industry is
00:09warning will accelerate as battery subsidies kick in.
00:13We can actually recycle up to 85% of the raw materials inside solar panels.
00:19We don't really have these recycling facilities ready at scale like what I think we're going
00:25to need in the next 10 years or so.
00:28There are currently 150 to 200 million solar panels installed in Australia for residential,
00:34commercial and large scale use.
00:37Around 4 million of them are decommissioned every year as people upgrade their systems.
00:42That's set to double to 8 million, even before the uptake of batteries.
00:48Currently, only 10% of panels are recycled.
00:53In a solar module there are metals that are in short supply, copper and silver.
00:57So landfilling these modules is wasting critical resources.
01:01The industry says the solution is simple and long overdue.
01:06It's calling on the federal government to get on with setting up a mandatory product
01:12stewardship scheme, which would help fund the recycling of solar panels through a levy imposed
01:18on importers and manufacturers.
01:20Without a national scheme, recycling solar panels is costly and logistically challenging.
01:28The biggest question that we get asked is around the supply of solar panels that we receive.
01:33And without that it's really hard to give an investor confidence to invest in our business.
01:38A call to save the very resources needed to power our energy future.
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