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OUR MISSION is to promote sustainable disposal of end-of-life solar equipment by facilitating engagement with donation recipients, secondary markets, and recycling vendors. To do this, we aggregate & centralize information to educate stakeholders about their options. We also recognize that transportation costs play a major part in choosing which vendors to utilize, so we have included an interactive map for the user to quickly see what companies may be a good fit based on geography. Our long-term intent is to tackle other waste management challenges of the industry, as well as track current state and federal policy related to solar equipment recycling and waste classification.
SOLARRECYCLE.ORG TEAM
Kate Collardson
Kate Collardson has played many roles in the solar industry, including installer, designer, permit technician, trainer, program manager, technical support, and product manager. After years of lamenting the lack of recycling options for solar equipment, she became an advocate for PV recycling, leading to the formation of solarrecycle.org. She holds a NABCEP PV Installation Professional credential and currently serves as chair of the Sustainability Advisory Board for the City of Longmont, Colorado where she lives with her wife and their two children.
Amanda Bybee
Since joining the solar industry in 2003, Amanda has helped launch several cooperatives: employee-owned cooperative Namasté Solar, purchasing cooperative Amicus Solar, financial cooperative Clean Energy Credit Union, and shared-services cooperative Amicus O&M Cooperative. In recent years, she has contributed time and energy to several passion projects, including a Women’s Speakers Bureau with WRISE, an informational website on how to recycle solar equipment at www.SolarRecycle.org, and an industry coalition on diversity, equity, and inclusion called Renewables Forward.
Stacey McKinney
Starting in renewables with an internship at SEI in 2003, Stacey then became an installation technician with Sunlight Solar, where she became one of only two women in the State of Oregon to earn a Limited Renewable Energy Technician (LRT) license, as well as becoming NABCEP Certified. In 2009, Stacey joined the team at Namaste Solar as a Project Manager/Designer, and then moved into a Commercial Design role. In 2014 she joined the Swinerton Renewable Energy/SOLV technology group managing various business applications and platforms, and now acts as the Sustainability Manager for SOLV.
Alex Blackmer
Alex has been providing solar project development & financial services for low-income & nonprofit organizations in Colorado since 2008. He is CEO & co-owner of Solaris Energy & Executive Director of The Atmosphere Conservancy, which combine the strengths of a non-profit and for-profit to open the solar market to all customers. In the past two years, he has deployed over $15 million in investment capital for solar projects in 8 states. He is past President of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society, a grassroots advocacy & educational group promoting renewables in Colorado since 1994.
Janna West-Heiss
In addition to Janna's work at the Atmosphere Conservancy, she is the Director of Communications & Corporate Development for Solaris Energy. She has previously held positions focusing on climate change & sustainability in communications, outreach, education, and program management for local government & non-profits. She is currently on the industry board for the Colorado Storage and Solar Association and a Delegate for the Biennials for the Americas Youth Congress for Sustainable Americas. She was the Vice Chair of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society board for 4 years.
Chris Stearns
Chris began his career in renewables in 2006 as a member of the teams at EcoFasten Solar and then at S-5. In early 2018 he moved to Portland, Oregon to take on a role as Solar Project Manager at North Coast, a Sonepar Company. While there he coordinated solar sales efforts, designing systems for off-grid, residential and commercial systems in OR and WA. It was in this role that Chris first encountered a need for solar equipment recycling. As a result, in 2021 Chris became the National Sales Director for Cascade Eco Minerals. He is now the Director of Downstream Business Development for PVEL, LLC.
Tyler Kanczuzewski
Tyler is the Vice President of Marketing and Sustainability, Board Member and an Investor of
Inovateus Solar. Originally from South Bend, IN, he was recently immersed in the Grand Rapids
and West Michigan sustainability community while working on his MBA at Grand Valley State
University with an emphasis in Sustainability, and he graduated in 2019. Tyler has since led the
company’s efforts in stewardship and sustainable practices, as well as creative marketing.
Angela Burke
For over eight years Angela Burke has led design and O&M teams to improved efficiency while cultivating strong team culture. Currently Angela is the Director of O&M at Pivot Energy where she manages an ever-growing portfolio of assets. She has been recognized by the Denver Business Journal (Outstanding Women in Energy-2019) and by Denver Public Schools (Outstanding Volunteer Partner-Multiple Years). Angela also acts as the website admin for this site.
SOLARRECYCLE.ORG COLLABORATORS
This website is maintained by a small group of volunteers, and we are very grateful to these collaborators that have supported us in collecting, organizing, and publishing the information you see here.
With special thanks to Stephen Kane for his passion and vision in helping build SolarRecycle.org in the early days.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
The Atmosphere Conservancy