Why Wind Turbine Blades Are So Hard to Recycle | World Wide Waste

Until recently, wind turbine blades were nearly impossible to recycle. Now, one company is shredding the blades so they can be used as fuel in cement making. But is this the best way to deal with a growing waste problem?

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Why Wind Turbines Blades Are So Hard to Recycle | World Wide Waste

[NotQuiteUseful]

My first thought when they say "used to make concrete" was as an aggregate alternative or filler, like how fiberglass is added to some mixes.
Nope. Burning.

[mikeking]

"Made from a combination of fiberglass and balsa wood"

Immediately shows them cutting it without respirators or other literally any other PPE

EDIT: Even if you exclude breathing PPE the dude isn't wearing safety goggles.

[johnsaunders]

Years ago the best thing to do with car tyres was to make them into ornamental rubber swans. The suggested uses for turbine blades (playgrounds or bike shelters) seem about as useful and sustainable as ornamental rubber tyre swans.

[steventurner]

I have worked in a glass fibre industry and you DO NOT want to be near when it is cut or ground. Breathing micro glass fibres into your lungs is a DEATH sentence.

[rippersix]

When they said they were using the shredded blades to make cement, I didn’t even consider it was being burnt. I imagined they were using the fibers as a binder like fiberglass “cat hair” that some companies mix into the cement to reinforce it.

[nalgene]

Building little bridges and fences out of the stuff is cute but it is unrealistic to think that pet projects like those will take care of the industrial scale of used turbine blades.

[aryehmendoza]

Imagine the carbon footprint of making it, shipping it, installing it, maintenance, removal, transferring it to the recycling plant and burning it.

[AflacMan]

"They have to replaced about every 20 years."

Except they are replaced significantly more often than that.

[johnviera]

“Blades need to be changed every 20 years”
Also
“These are 8-12 years old”

[spookayitsme]

Here I was thinking that they kinda mulched up the blades and mixed it into concrete .... Not burning it 😅

[BoomGiggity]

I'm curious to know if the blade shredder sites are powered by wind turbines.

[TWiumph]

Wind turbine blades being 1/8 of all plastic waste seems very significant to me. I favor nuclear.

[PerpetualTurbulence]

I love how they measured the blade in school buses rather than in meters

[Dirtbiker-guy]

Use it for the production of stone matrix asphalt that our high traffic interstates are paved with, which uses "cellulose fibers" specifically made to add during production to prevent the drain down of liquid asphalt through the open graded aggregate structure of the mix. The added fibers offer no structural advantages other than keeping the liquid asphalt suspended in the mix until it cools. The shredded fibers of these blades may offer the same useful purpose.

[environmentaldataexchange]

A 100% petroleum-based process. Good job!

[redrobin]

Made from fiberglass, but the guy cutting them up isn't even using a mask. That's crazy

[antonnym]

I drove up the San Fernando valley 18 months ago and passed by dozens of wind farms. I was shocked to see about a fifth of the turbines visibly broken. Blades missing, heads bowed, etc... and additionally up to a third of the total turbines were not turning. There doesn't seem to be any maintenance at all going on.

[chrisstoltz]

I wonder if the ground up blades can be used for insulation for buildings. Or if there is a way to strip the resin off the fiberglass and wood. I have heard that fiberglass boats used to have gas tanks made of fiberglass. Over time, the gasoline, a solvent, would break down the fiberglass and clog up the fuel lines. If the blade can be taken apart, then the materials can be used somewhere else.

[ReconstructingTheWorld]

We are right now cutting down old wind turbines for reuse in architecture :-) They are being used for our 20 stories wooden building in Denmark right now!

[f.m.]

Are we seriously being told that 48 million tonnes of non recyclable toxic waste a year is okay because it only accounts for 1/8th of plastic “waste” which is perfectly recyclable?