In the Scottish port town of Irvine in Ayrshire, almost 80 of Britain\u2019s oldest wind turbine blades lay disused in an old warehouse for over eighteen months.<\/p>\n
Thirty years ago they towered 55 metres above the South Lanarkshire countryside, powering Scotland\u2019s first commercial windfarm at Hagshaw Hill. But earlier this year these blades pioneered a green energy breakthrough of another kind: blade recycling.<\/p>\n
Where they once stood, a clutch of 14 newer turbines have taken their place<\/a>. They are larger, more powerful, and will generate five times more green electricity than the originals while taking up less space.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in Europe, similar plans to \u201crepower\u201d the continent\u2019s oldest windfarms<\/a> with more efficient turbines and more powerful blades are under way, increasing clean power generation. However, this green revolution brings a fresh sustainability challenge for the industry as companies consider what to do with the thousands of obsolete older models.<\/p>\n About 85% to 90% of a wind turbine is made from steel and other materials that can be easily recycled. However, the glass fibre or carbon fibre blades, designed to withstand the wear and tear of the elements, are more difficult to break down.<\/p>\n Hagshaw\u2019s blades were shipped in the spring from Ayrshire to a site in Northern Ireland owned by Plaswire, a Belfast-based recycling company. By the middle of October it expects to have recycled the blades into a hybrid-polymer which could be used to produce precast concrete alternatives or replace virgin plastics.<\/p>\n By 2030 Europe is expected to dismantle about 14,000 wind turbines, creating 40,000-60,000 tonnes of blade waste<\/p>\n The race to find a way to recycle old turbine blades needs to progress apace. By 2030 Europe<\/a> is expected to dismantle about 14,000 wind turbines, creating 40,000-60,000 tonnes of blade waste, according to WindEurope. Germany alone will account for approximately 23,300 tonnes, followed by Spain with 16,000 and Italy with 2,300.<\/p>\n The US wind power industry is expected to follow suit. By 2050 the government expects wind turbine blade waste to range from about 200,000 to 370,000 tonnes a year as windfarms approved under the Biden administration reach the end of their lives.<\/p>\n Pieces of wind turbine blades are buried in the Casper regional landfill in Wyoming, US. Some of the world\u2019s oldest turbines have been dumped in landfill. Photograph: Benjamin Rasmussen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Today, most of the world\u2019s established windfarm developers have vowed to avoid their old blades ending up in the ground. However, the fact that some of the world\u2019s oldest turbines have been dumped in landfill<\/a> has raised concerns over the industry\u2019s sustainability credentials.<\/p>\n Opponents of wind power have seized on the dilemma of what to do with old turbines. Donald Trump, who has made his loathing for the technology clear<\/a>, claimed that wind turbines \u201cstart to rust and rot in eight years\u201d.<\/p>\n The US president said during his visit to Scotland in July: \u201cYou can\u2019t really turn them off, you can\u2019t burn them. They won\u2019t let you bury the propellers, the props, because there\u2019s a certain type of fibre that doesn\u2019t go well with the land.\u201d<\/p>\n Those claims have been dismissed by experts<\/a> and those working towards new ways to reuse old turbines. Steven Lindsay, a blade recycling entrepreneur in Scotland, told the Guardian \u201cthe reality isn\u2019t as President Trump described\u201d.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cDecommissioning old windfarms is about managing an infrastructure transition that transforms yesterday\u2019s clean energy assets into tomorrow\u2019s raw materials.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been using circular economy principles to repurpose and recycle the blades into valuable products for years \u2013 from using whole blade segments as high-impact public realm infrastructure like shelters, to extracting the fibres for remanufacture into something new.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hagshaw Hill site above the Spireslack opencast coalmine in Lanarkshire was Scotland\u2019s first commercial windfarm. Photograph: Construction Photography\/Avalon\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The former employee of ScottishPower<\/a>, which owns the Hagshaw Hill windfarm, struck a deal with the rival developer SSE to use retired blades from its older windfarms as shelters for electric vehicle charging points in Dundee. Bus shelters and bike shelters made from turbine blades are on offer, too.<\/p>\n However, the vast majority of turbines will not have the option of being repurposed. ScottishPower\u2019s parent, the Spanish energy company Iberdrola, believes it may have a solution that could work at scale.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The company said earlier this summer that its new blade recycling facility on the Iberian peninsula would be able to transform up to 10,000 tonnes of blade waste a year, or a sixth of the total waste expected by 2030.<\/p>\n The project aims to recover the glass fibres and resins used to create wind turbine blades and reuse them in sectors such as energy, aerospace, automotive, textiles, chemicals and construction. In this way it could continue contributing to the energy transition and promoting the circular economy in Spain, the company said.<\/p>\n Mario Ruiz-Tagle, the chief executive of Iberdrola Spain, said: \u201cWe are inaugurating much more than an industrial plant. We are inaugurating a new stage in the circular economy of renewable energies. This factory, the first on the peninsula dedicated to recycling wind turbine blades, is a concrete response to a challenge that is already here.\u201d<\/p>\n Across the industry, companies including ScottishPower, SSE and Denmark\u2019s \u00d8rsted have promised to work closely with government bodies and industry associations to develop a new generation of wind turbine blade that is easier to recycle and the recycling facilities to get the job done.<\/p>\n An \u00d8rsted spokesperson said: \u201cIf it takes longer than anticipated to find recycling solutions that are both environmentally sustainable and commercially viable, we will store any decommissioned blades temporarily to save them from landfill.\u201d<\/p>\n ScottishPower owns the Hagshaw Hill windfarm. Photograph: ScottishPower<\/p>\n