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March 18, 2025 — Clean energy has a waste problem that is easy to ignore until it lands on the curb. Electric vehicles and rooftop solar panels are helping the U.S. cut carbon emissions, but the hardware is not immortal. Batteries lose capacity, panels crack, inverters fail. Without better recycling systems, the clean energy transition could simply shift pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks to landfills.
Researchers at Australia's RMIT University have issued a detailed warning about this hidden side of the energy transition. Dr. Akvan Gajanayake, who studies infrastructure and project management, and Associate Professor Muhammad Abdulrahman, a supply-chain expert, argue that the countries leading on EVs and solar power are not ready for what happens when those technologies wear out.
The warning is based on Australian data, but it applies directly to the United States. U.S. EV sales have climbed from a niche product to a mainstream choice, and rooftop solar capacity has surged over the past decade. Every one of those vehicles and systems will someday be removed, dismantled, and recycled.
The battery problem is the most immediate. A typical lithium-ion EV pack is designed to last 10 to 20 years. Packs from the early years of the modern EV era are now approaching the end of their first useful life, and many more are on the way. Some can be repurposed for stationary storage, but all will eventually need recycling.
Gajanayake’s concern is not the absence of recycling technology. Facilities can already break down battery packs and recover lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper. The challenge is economics and logistics. EV packs are heavy, high-voltage, and difficult to transport. Damaged cells can catch fire. Without efficient collection networks and enough volume, recycling costs remain too high, and the path of least resistance is a garage floor, a warehouse corner, or worse.
The scale is daunting. In Australia, researchers project that end-of-life lithium-ion batteries could number in the millions by 2035. For the U.S., the volume would be many times larger. Lithium, cobalt, and nickel are also critical materials for future supply chains. Treating them as waste is not only an environmental mistake; it is a strategic one.
Solar panels present an equally serious challenge. Modern modules are designed to last 25 to 30 years, but many are retired earlier because of hail damage, electrical faults, or homeowners upgrading to newer, higher-efficiency models. In Australia, one of the most rooftop-solar-heavy countries in the world, projections suggest the country could produce roughly one million tonnes of panel waste by 2035 — equivalent to about 50 million standard panels.
The U.S. has no comparable national projection, but its installed solar base is enormous, and the early wave of panels from the 2010s is now reaching the point where replacement decisions are becoming common.
Panels are not just glass and aluminum. They contain silver, copper, and silicon, and some types contain trace amounts of lead or cadmium. Putting them in landfills wastes those materials and risks contamination. Properly recycled, a panel can yield metals and glass that return to manufacturing, reducing the need for virgin extraction.
To make panel recycling practical, Abdulrahman argues for a national Digital Product Passport system. Every module would carry a permanent digital record of its composition, manufacturing date, warranty status, and service history. When a module stops working, recyclers and regulators could immediately see what it contains and how it should be handled.
The same logic applies to batteries. Product passports also create a transparency standard that would make it harder for cheap, poor-quality imports to flood the market, fail early, and add to the waste burden.
This is not a futuristic idea. The European Union will require battery passports for EV and industrial batteries sold in Europe beginning in 2027. Some U.S. manufacturers are already tracking battery data on their own to satisfy customer demands and environmental disclosures. A federal push could turn those voluntary efforts into a durable national system.
The U.S. is not starting from zero. The Department of Energy has spent years funding lithium-ion battery recycling research. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law directed billions toward battery supply-chain and manufacturing projects. The Inflation Reduction Act includes manufacturing incentives that can support recycled-content supply chains. But these initiatives stop short of a coherent end-of-life strategy for EV batteries and solar panels.
At the federal level, spent batteries and panels can fall under different hazardous waste rules depending on chemistry and testing. Some states have moved to treat solar panels as universal waste, allowing them to be managed more easily. But the patchwork of state approaches leaves many households, installers, and demolition contractors without a clear answer for where retired hardware should go.
Recycling is also an economic puzzle. Battery and panel recyclers need steady supply volumes to keep their plants profitable. If the supply of end-of-life products is unpredictable, private capital tends to wait. Producer-responsibility rules, take-back mandates, or well-designed deposit programs could build the certainty that investors need.
America has seen this movie before with electronics. Phones, computers, and televisions piled up for years before recycling systems matured. The lesson from that experience is that voluntary recycling rarely scales. When a product is cheap to buy and expensive to recycle, most of it ends up stored in closets, basements, and landfills.
Clean energy hardware should not repeat that pattern. The materials are more valuable and the environmental stakes are higher. A circular economy — one in which batteries and panels are designed for repair, reuse, and recovery — is not an add-on to the clean energy transition. It is part of the transition.
There are practical benefits beyond waste. Second-life EV batteries can serve as backup power or grid storage. Old panels can power off-grid homes or community projects. Each stage of reuse extends the value of the original investment and reduces the pressure to mine new materials.
For U.S. households and businesses, the advice from researchers is simple: ask where the equipment will go before you buy it. For policymakers, the task is to build collection and recycling systems now, before the first big wave of retired batteries and panels arrives. Planning for the end of a product’s life is not a sign of weakness in the clean energy economy. It is a measure of how seriously that economy treats the future.
