The province of Lecco, Northern Italy, will be the first to offer its citizens a free collection and disposal service for end-of-life photovoltaic modules.

A cooperation agreement was signed on April 3, 2012 between COBAT (the Italian consortium in charge of collection and management of accumulators and e-waste) and Silea, the company that manages urban waste collection in Lecco province. According to this agreement Silea will manage the door-to-door collection, while COBAT will take care of the treatment and recycling of the modules.

The project is targeting the domestic PV plants up to 10 kW and it is estimated that some 20.600 modules will be discarded in the near future only in Lecco province. The initiative is part of a more general program of collection and disposal of PV modules at national level promoted by COBAT and anticipates the requirements of the new European Directive, which will soon include PV modules in the list of e-waste that need to be separately collected and appropriately treated.

For more information please visit COBAT website (Italian only)