Free-riders in waste management and legal compliance may have become the new threat to sustainable PV business in Europe. PV CYCLE’s Head of Public Affairs talks us through the current situation and offers advice for a legally-sound – not to mention environmentally conscious – future.
2013 was a boom year, not for everyone, but certainly for the industry’s commitment to sustainable lifecycle management. And while the European market for new PV installations declined from 17.6 GW in 2012 to approximately 10 GW in 2013, the PV waste market flourished.
More than 90% of the European PV market adhered to sustainable waste management; PV CYCLE collected over 3,000 tonnes of damaged or end-of-life PV modules from 18 countries, 50 percent more countries than the previous year. Membership reached an all-time high with one hundred percent more members than the year before.
Then 2014 came and WEEE kicked in. WEEE is the European Directive for waste from electronic and electrical equipment and the United Kingdom and Bulgaria covered PV modules in their national WEEE legislation in 2014 for the very first time.
