Indeed perovskites are an unknown, but I used them only as an example to show how reduction of toxic materials can be done at source, which would remove the risk that profit driven companies will find a business case in having toxic materials present, which they can then be employed to remove, thus giving us yet another energy wasting "Bullshit business" (Business comprised of bullshit jobs - David Graeber), perpetuating the problem. As said, the toxic materials in solar panels are no more than average electronics, we have yet to see any problem due specifically to disposal of solar panels, like we have seen in batteries.
It is conceivable that we can create a problem right here just by raising VC interest in a possible profit making business, which can then be presented as having "Green credentials", when actually we would be better off just not creating the issue in the first place. All it would take, is for some existing shareholders in solar panel manufacture to purchase also some shares in the proposed business, and suddenly we have in the solar panel manufacturers money being put towards "research" aimed at showing a case for adding toxic materials which would not have been there otherwise.
We should know this is likely, so should take measures to prevent it from becoming like the FDA, which obviously has internal conflicts of interest, shareholders holding shares in big pharma have every reason to persuade food manufacturers to put more sugar in food, for example, to increase sales of the "fix", which is insulin, that they sell at a pretty extreme profit.
Another subtlety of this is that currently, it is not accepted by the conventional business / scientific community that solar is distinctly different from all other sources of energy, by being something free that should be being monetised. If / when it becomes so, then there will no longer be so much concern about efficiency, because who cares, how much leaks, if all that matters is that we scale it up, freely, to do what we need. This removes the argument that rare or toxic materials should be added to improve efficiency. Our "pipe" supplying free, limitless energy is freely scaleable, limited only by availability of exposed surface area, as I've shown in the money-fuel tree story. As long as we can do that, then we are not so worried about efficiency.
