Due to the trend of green consuming, eco-friendly products are preferably selected by organizations both in public and private sectors. WEEE (2012/19/EU) and RoHS (2011/65/EU) have been announced by EU Communique already. The first is to decrease the waste amount of electrical equipment include PV panel, and increase the rate of re-use, recovery and recycle each other. The later one is based on the principle avoiding pollution and polluter payment rule. To decrease the environmental impact, RoHS limits all new equipment to use the hazardous substance inside such as Pb, Cd, Hg, Cr6+, PBDE and PBB. Currently c-Si and thin-film PV products do not follow all WEEE and RoHS principles to do waste recovery and recycle. Especially for the thin-film products, the percentages of hazardous substance still are out of the specification of RoHS. Since Taiwan focused on export trade and developed the renewable energy policy of PV over 10 years, Ministry of Economic Affairs “Million Rooftop PVs Promotion Project’ is expanding PV system capacity locally soon. Therefore, the amount of waste of PV modules hereby will be high and to impact environment and Taiwan’s branding in coming future. This work addressed the current PV recovery and recycle policy globally include life cycle and the waste handling process for each commercial PV modules worldwide. Furthermore, we also consult the experiences of European Union (EU) PV CYCLE organization and study their management system and summary the work of those voluntary companies which recovery and recycle their waste products in details. This can assist Taiwan government to develop waste policy and regulations for PV module include components. Results also recommend not only to update waste product laws, but also to accelerate the speed to build up PV CYCLE system locally soon, which can leverage and handle all waste PV products at Taiwan by Non-Profit Third-Party or Recycling Fund Management Board. The other key points are to cooperate with PV CYCLE organization globally (e.g., EU PV CYCLE), and to train industry company and end user for recycle or reuse issues continually

WEEE、 commercial PV modules、PV recycle system