WRS Texas plant to recycle one solar panel per minute — SkimNews
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- We Recycle Solar (WRS) says it will open what it describes as the first US end-to-end critical-materials recovery plant dedicated to retired solar panels in Q3 2027, on a 10-acre site outside Dallas.
- The Dallas-area facility is designed to process one panel per minute and recover up to 96% of the silver, copper, silicon, aluminum, and glass, with materials cleaned and prepared for sale back into US supply chains.
- Conventional US solar recycling typically recovers only the aluminum frame and glass — the bulk of a panel's weight but not its most valuable parts — and generally costs more than landfilling, according to the article.
- WRS founder and CEO Adam Saghei said the company's process achieves 'true, comprehensive material recovery entirely on US soil,' retaining value currently sent to Asian processing.
- WRS says it has already diverted more than 1 million panels from landfills through its existing decommissioning, recycling, resale, and remarketing operations.
- The company plans to invest around $100 million in four additional US facilities over the next four years, though it has not yet disclosed their locations.
- The US Department of Energy notes about 70% of the world's solar projects have been installed since 2019; with panel lifetimes of 25–35 years, end-of-life volumes will climb sharply over coming decades.
Why it matters: Today, most US solar recycling loses silver, copper, and silicon to cost economics — so those critical materials are either landfilled or shipped overseas for smelting. A facility claiming 96% recovery on US soil, backed by a planned $100M rollout of four more plants, would mark the first domestic attempt to close that loop at commercial scale before the bulk of the 25–35-year retirement wave arrives.
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