Life Cycle Assessment to Quantify Global Warming and Human Health–Respiratory Impacts of Using Composites from Waste Wind Turbine Blades as Feedstock for Cement Clinker and Fiberglass Production

The wind energy sector
is a growing contributor to global electricity
generation. The increasing deployment of wind turbines also creates
significant waste when turbine materials reach their end-of-life.
Glass fiber reinforced polymer composites, which comprise the majority
of a wind turbine blade’s mass, are difficult to separate into
their component parts for recycling. This study employs a cradle-to-gate
life cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts of utilizing
waste wind turbine blade material in cement clinker and fiberglass
production. We find that incorporating waste blades as 15% of the
feedstock in a cement clinker production plant reduces global warming
and human health–respiratory impacts by 9 and 34%, respectively,
compared to using virgin materials only. For a fiberglass plant, this
substitution increases global warming impacts by 11% but decreases
respiratory health impacts by 3%. Each kilogram of secondary product
diverts approximately 0.25–0.32 kg of WTB waste from landfills.
The projected rate of blade decommissioning of ∼800,000 tonnes
per year would replace less than 1% of the overall virgin material
demand for the cement clinker industry and up to 8% for the fiberglass
industry, indicating plenty of capacity for these industries to accommodate
this waste blade material in their feedstocks.