Editor’s note: This story was originally published on June 11, 2023.
Aging or damaged wind turbine blades can be shredded to make products like cement, sports clothing, injectable plastic pellets and even gummy bears and sports drinks.
Innovation and scientific break-throughs have transformed what was largely a non-recyclable item just a few years ago into new and alternative uses, according to industry experts.
News accounts detailed projections of thousands upon thousands of the behemoth blades piling up in landfills around the nation and world when they passed their usable life.
“Around four years ago, that claim was fairly true,” said Grady Howell, program manager of blade sustainability and recycling for Vestas American Wind Technology. “The industry has changed very quickly regarding composite recycling.”
When the wind is blowing in Maine, these massive blades, some as large as 200 feet long and weighing as much as 52,000 pounds, rotate atop towers to produce electricity on wind farms dotting the state. As the use of wind technology spreads across the nation and the state, what happens to the discarded wind blades is important to environmentally conscious Mainers.
There are two wind farms in Aroostook County, Mars Hill and Oakfield. Mars Hill was the state’s first wind farm, installed in 2006 along a ridge in the small town.
Unless damaged by storms or other causes, the blades on Mars Hill’s 22 wind turbines should live for about 10 more years depending on weather, according to industry projections. Oakfield’s 48 wind turbines were installed in 2016 and they should be in place for another 15 or so years.
According to the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, 72,669 wind turbines are located in 43 states plus Guam and Puerto Rico. The database lists 23 wind farms with 379 individual turbines in Maine, from Passadumkeag to Vinalhaven.
Until recently, when these blades reached the end of life or became damaged, they would have likely been trucked to massive wind blade graveyards in places like Wyoming. Today, that’s unlikely because with new processes the blades are more than 95 percent recyclable, according to Howell.
Vestas, the largest wind blade manufacturer in the world, makes the blades for Onward Energy, which owns three Maine wind farms including Aroostook County’s Oakfield wind farm with 48 turbines, Bingham wind project with 56 turbines and Hancock in Hancock County with 17.
“Generally I don’t think that’s how most people get rid of their turbine blades today,” said Stacey Fitts, senior director of asset management at Renewables for Onward Energy. “Those [in landfills] likely came from turbines that became obsolete. Most of the modern turbines are recycled.”
Fitts said Onward Energy had to replace a couple of damaged blades in North Dakota and a handful in Texas, but not a whole site. In Maine, they replaced one defective blade at the Oakfield farm.
“The blade itself was shredded and broken into small parts and sent to an incinerator. Then they took the ash and it was put into concrete,” Fitts said. “I don’t think, generally, anybody wants these things to just be thrown off in a trash pile somewhere. And it wouldn’t make you very popular locally. ”
Not all damaged blades must be replaced, some can be repaired, Fitts said, adding that Onward Energy often uses Coastal Composites, a blade repair company that originated in Maine and now repairs blades throughout the United States from its Texas location.
When blades eventually reach the end of life, the trend is to repower them, according to Fitts. Sometimes they can reuse the tower with a new turbine on top and sometimes they are torn down and a new one installed, he said.
Howell said that Vestas started its recycling program in late 2020, and went commercial in 2021, recycling 1,600 tons of blades. In 2022, it recycled 5,000 tons by burning it for its energy content and mixing its remnants into a type of cement, he said.
According to the American Chemical Society, several companies, like Vestas, in the United States and Europe are working on recycling the blades and these new technologies are creating a sustainable circular economy from blades that were previously doomed to inundate landfills.
Global Fiberglass Solutions in Bellevue, Washington, transforms the blades’ fiberglass composites into small pellets that can be turned into injectable plastics. Michigan University scientists found a way to extract a food-grade lactate from more modern wind blade resins and created gummy bears made from recycled blades. European designers turned discarded blades into playgrounds in the Netherlands, and in Denmark and Ireland, the blades’ aerodynamic curves make for interesting bicycle shelters and bridges.
Robert Sanford, University of Southern Maine emeritus professor of environmental planning and environmental assessment, points to Carbon Rivers in Tennessee as an example of wind blade recycling innovation. The company uses a high heat process to transform the recycled blades into nonwoven fabrics, continuous textile yarns, automotive sheet molding compounds and plastic injection molding pellets.
The company has already upcycled a few thousand metric tons and is gearing up to take in more than 50,000 metric tons annually, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Carbon Rivers is on tap to become the first U.S.-based full-scale glass fiber recycling facility. Projections say it will be able to process from 5,000 to 7,000 fiberglass wind turbine blades each year, depending on blade size and generation, according to the Department of Energy.
Sanford, who has spent his career exploring alternative housing options, wonders if the blades could eventually be used to create housing or large shelters for the homeless.
“When you look at the thickness of the blades,” he said. “Why not make structures?”
