LED, solar tech could prompt pollution crisis if recycling is left unaddressed

I applaud the Plain Dealer’s effort to highlight the issue of lead pollution and brain health. (Cleveland’s must address inadequate steps to end lead poisoning in children) Nevertheless, other sources of chemical pollution lurk in the not-too-distant future and may affect a broad swath of the population with adverse health consequences.

The materials used in the manufacture of LED’s and solar panels, i.e. gallium arsenide and cadmium telluride (amongst others) pose a recycling nightmare with current technologies.

Gallium arsenide is well known to be highly toxic and carcinogenic for humans. While the cadmium molecule is tightly bound in a crystalline lattice, under certain conditions it can be liberated and pose an environmental threat. In very small quantities of disposed materials twenty or thirty years ago, the “end-of-life” recycling problem was not a significant issue.

Today, as LED illumination and photovoltaics have become pervasive, strict and specific recycling regulations should be enacted, and the soil beneath solar power farms regularly tested for hazardous materials. The solar panel farms installed today reach the end of their useful lives in 25 years. Now is the time to plan.

John Walton,

Shaker Heights