The waste disposal industry warns that the construction of wind turbines poses a long-term problem with waste. Because the rotor blades are incinerated after dismantling or dumped abroad instead of being recycled.
The waste disposal industry in Germany is calling for a rethink when building wind turbines in order to solve the long-term problem of rotor blade waste. After dismantling, the parts reinforced with carbon or glass fiber are often incinerated or dumped abroad, explained the President of the Waste Management Association BDE, Peter Kurth. “For decades, Germany has been putting wind turbines on fields that cannot be reasonably used.” This leads to an annoying waste of resources.
BDE calls for tough specifications circular economy
According to the idea of the industry, manufacturers should build their wind turbines in such a way that they can be easily dismantled into various components and recycled after they have been in use for around two decades. “The recyclables have to be put back into the cycle instead of just being burned,” says Kurth. It is regrettable that this waste problem was not considered in the energy transition.
In the coming year, the federal government must make tough specifications in a strategy for the circular economy, emphasized the BDE President. It would be conceivable that manufacturers would be given a transitional period and then only be allowed to bring rotor blades onto the market that are easily recyclable.
Wind energy is increasingly being used
In the first half of the year, the share of renewable energies from wind and sun in electricity consumption in Germany continued to rise and was around 52 percent, according to preliminary calculations by the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) and the Federal Association of Energy and Hydrogen Research Water Management (BDEW) show. Around 42 percent of the electricity generated from renewable energies came from onshore wind turbines.