Does recycling solar panels make this renewable resource sustainable? Evidence supported by environmental, economic, and social dimensions

•Recycling solar panels (PV) can decrease its environmental hazard.•Levelized cost of electricity can be improved by ∼2% through PV recycling.•Social survey has suggested that regional public is willing to embrace recycling.•Mass training programs are recommended for social acceptability. Mass production of solar (photovoltaic PV) panels exhibits a socioenvironmental threat owing to their end-of-life waste which is projected to be in millions of tons by mid-century. It brings vulnerability among the low-income countries who are still debating on the acceptability of renewable energies then how could they accept an advanced form i.e., “PV recycling”? Inadequate management of global PV waste can generate renewable energy poverty and a neutral sustainability approach should be adopted. This work aims to combine environmental, economic, and social dimensions of PV waste for a vulnerable region, Yucatan (Mexico), to implement sustainable PV waste regulations. Life-cycle-environmental analysis has suggested that these impacts can be decreased through PV recycling with a notable diminution in human toxicity and freshwater ecotoxicity by ∼78%. Life-cycle-cost assessment has testified that the Levelized-cost-of-electricity with PV recycling can be ∼2% less than the case without PV recycling. The social survey has indicated that recycling PV can be acceptable provided mass training programs and recycling incentives can be introduced for the public awareness to facilitate the efficient implementation of a regularization. In the end, this work, in a methodological way, answers the philosophical debate that if recycling solar panels can provide sustainability to this industry. [Display omitted]