<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/cant-recycle-solar-this-local-business-is-making-millions-from-copper-aluminium-sales/>
"An ignorant comment from federal opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan last
week has solar recyclers bristling, and one company founder is now on a media
tour to prove that, actually, his tech does exist and he’s making good money
off of it.
John Hill is the cofounder of Pan Pacific Recycling, a Brisbane-based company
that has a machine that can strip a solar panel of its valuable parts in 45
seconds.
“We’re able to remove all the products from the panel,” Hill tells Renew
Economy. “It enables us to do broken panels, whole panels, misshapen panels, to
a degree, without flattening them back out.”
Pan Pacific has been doing this commercially since 2023 – hence the irritation
with the likes of Tehan saying they don’t exist – and is projecting revenue of
$5 million from solar recycling alone this financial year against $3 million in
costs, including the R&D and machinery spend.
That’s on a “gateway” of $10 per panel, and making a 50c margin from material
sales. That margin is not quite good enough, but it’s early days yet, Hill
says.
Buyers include a manufacturer that was turning the glass into benchtops and
floor tiles and engraving each tile saying as much, and jewellers who bought
the silver.
But the big sellers are copper and aluminium, which Pan Pacific projects to
bring in $1.1 million and $1.9 million alone this financial year as they’re
able to sell it at the very top end of what recycled metals get in Australia.
The company is not even the only very-high-recovery solar panel recycler in
Australia – although given the challenges of competing with cheaper landfill or
crushers, its company is slim.
Victoria-based Elecsome is one competitor still in the industry, and Sircel is
still advertising its solar recycling services despite administrators being
called in last year over what it called a business dispute in the e-waste
division."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
