According to the General Department of Environment (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment), in order to have the legal bases to ensure the processing of discarded solar panels. Article 55 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020 stipulated that organizations and individuals producing or importing products and packages containing hazardous substances, which are difficult to recycle or cause difficulties for collecting and processing procedures, have to make financial contributions to the Vietnam Environmental Protection Fund to support waste processing activities.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has researched and put solar panels on the list of products that manufacturers and importers have to take back and recycle in the draft of the Decree on guiding the implementation of the Law on Environmental Protection in 2020, which is expected to be submitted to the Government in September 2021.
In fact, due to the large demand for electricity, recently, many solar power projects have been deployed in the central and southern regions.
In general, discarded solar panels, if being improperly buried, or caught fire, will potentially pollute the soil and water environment by generating heavy metals or toxic emissions, affecting human health.
However, a solar panel is actually a product that has the function of absorbing energy from sunlight and converting it into electricity.
Therefore, solar panels do not belong to the types of discarded batteries with hazardous waste codes, such as 19 06 01, 19 06 02, 19 06 04 and 19 06 05 as specified in Circular No. 36/2015/TT-BTNMT dated June 30, 2015 of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment on hazardous waste management, not on the list of discarded products specified in Decision No. 16/2015/QD-TTg dated May 22/ 2015 of the Prime Minister on recollecting and processing discarded products.
Currently, organizations and individuals producing and using solar panels must comply with the regulations on responsibilities of people discarding the waste specified in Decree No. 38/2015/ND-CP dated April 24, 2015 of the Government on waste management.
Accordingly, in Article 7, Article 16 and Article 30 of Decree No. 38, it is clearly stated about the responsibilities of hazardous waste generators; responsibilities of organizations and individuals generating daily-life solid waste and responsibilities of ordinary industrial solid waste generators.
Particularly for hazardous waste generators, they must be self-responsible for the identification, classification and determination of the quantity of hazardous waste to be reported and managed according to the provisions of Clause 2, Article 7 of Decree No. 38/2015/ND-CP. Waste owners are responsible for classifying solar panels as prescribed in Section 3 of QCVN 07:2009/BTNMT – National technical regulations on hazardous waste levels for proper management, such as reuse, recycling, processing or transfering to facilities with appropriate functions for recycling and processing in accordance with the regulations.
Source: baotintuc.vn
