Bright Lights, Big Shiny

IBM announces new process to reuse, recycle silicon wafers for solar panels

Posted at 5:45 AM on 31 Oct 2007

Tech giant IBM announced it has developed a simple new process to recycle the silicon wafers it uses in many of its products. The process extends the silicon wafers' useful life, and when that life is finally over, the wafers can then be sold to make solar panels. IBM calculates that if all of the 3 million wafers discarded each year worldwide by the tech industry were instead turned into solar panels, they could create enough electricity to power about 6,000 homes.

sources:  Atlanta Journal-Constitution, CNN Money