Shards of light: Ruination, pollution, and the lived experience of solar waste in India

Abstract

Detritus from damaged, defective or decommissioned decarbonization infrastructures is rapidly accumulating at sites of energy transitions and already becoming a significant threat to local social and ecological systems. Despite India's recent regulatory frameworks for the proper management of e-waste, solar wastes threaten the health and vitality of exposed more-than-human populations and ecosystems. This study is motivated by the following research question: How does the ruination of landscapes and the devaluation of labor produce value in solar waste? Drawing upon empirical data derived from semi-structured interviews in Southern India and literature from the fields of energy geographies and discard studies, we advance the concept of ulterior ruination—a determined yet deferred technological breakdown for the present mitigation of the climate crisis with intentionally concealed socioecological dynamics to achieve particular political results. Solar waste recycling networks in India are an amalgam of formal and informal processes and networks of collection, reprocessing and disposal. Precarious laborers are exposed to occupational hazards when rendering the solar panels using crude tools. Irrespective of the attainment of decarbonization targets in the coming decades through solar development, the intergenerational injustices of solar afterlives will exacerbate the devaluation of informal laborers and exposed landscapes.