"Clean energy’s dirty secret: the trail of waste left by India’s solar power boom", 18 April 2024

Pavagada, 100 miles north of Bengaluru in southern India, is the world’s third-largest solar power plant, with 25m panels across a huge 50 sq km site, and a capacity of 2,050MW of clean energy.

India has 11 similarly vast solar parks, and plans to install another 39 across 12 states by 2026, a commitment to a greener future.

Yet this solar boom has a downside: the waste it generates from the panels, made of glass, aluminium, silicon, rare-earth elements; as well as power inverters and wiring.

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India’s solar ambitions come with a hefty amount of waste. With the nation targeting output of 280GW of solar power by 2030, of which 70.1GW is already installed, one study forecasts an accumulation of more than 600,000 tonnes of solar waste by then, with this projected to increase 32-fold to more than 19m tonnes by 2050.

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At a clandestine worksite in Goripalya, just outside Bengaluru, Tayyab skillfully manoeuvres through the hazardous process with bare hands and crude tools. His friend and siblings pitch in wherever they can.

Using a small three-wheeled auto-rickshaw, Tayyab’s friend Imran* makes the rounds of warehouses, collecting about 50 solar panels a week.

Tayyab’s story is just one among many in the informal solar-waste sector, where workers find ways to extract value from the under-regulated but booming renewable-energy sector.