There are those cynics who harshly criticize wind turbines for “filling up landfills”. That’s a false assertion. These badmouths never say anything about the *other* 87.5 to 90% of plastic waste that is filling up landfills. When compared to the rest of plastic waste, the amount that wind turbine blades generate is insignificant. The blades last for 20 years and they are finding more ways of recycling the blades.
From YouTube video Truth About Wind Turbines by 2-Bit Davinci
Kapil Chhabria
5d ago
<< One must examine how frequent this issue would be encountered: If once in a lifecycle of 20 years, I believe even the most unimaginative solution of filling a landfill with used blades is not prohibitive. For comparison, typical american would produce 1700 lbs per person, per year of trash that is landfill bound. Or about 34,000 lbs of trash per person in 20 years. By comparison, a typical blade weighs anywhere between 25,000 30,000 lbs, and a 1.5 MW turbine would produce three such discarded blades once every 20 years, while also serving about 1000 households (1000-1500kWh per month). That is about (3 blades x 30,000 lbs per blade)/ (1000 households x 2.5 individuals per household x 20 years) = 1.8 lbs per person, per year of extra landfill trash. This is an absolutely insignificant number. >>