Addressing Wind Energy Waste Through Circular Design and Shared Stewardship

As Australia rapidly scales up our wind energy infrastructure, the promise of a low-emissions future is clear. But there’s a growing blind spot—how we manage the significant waste generated during construction, operation, and especially decommissioning.

Turbine blades made from composite materials like fibreglass, carbon fibre, and resins are increasingly having to be stockpiled or landfilled due to defects or obsolescence, as the earliest wind farms near end-of-life. Meanwhile, construction waste—PVC tarps, engineered timber crates, cable drums, and LDPE wrapping—adds further pressure to landfills, with very limited recovery options, particularly in regional areas.

The Codrington Wind Farm in south-west Victoria—one of Australia’s first commercial-scale wind projects—will shut by 2027 due to aging infrastructure and high repowering costs. Its decommissioning highlights the urgent need for forward planning and circularity in wind farm design. Without this, the waste burden risks falling on landholders, councils, and regional waste facilities that are ill-equipped to handle the scale and complexity.

Logistical challenges compound the issue. Onshore projects are often in remote areas lacking the infrastructure for waste sorting or recovery. Offshore wind—still emerging—presents added complexities: long transport distances, weather-related disruptions, and intensive staging requirements all increase packaging waste and complicate handling and disposal.

Yet, some components present clear opportunities. The nacelle, which houses the gearbox, generator and brake, can weigh over 4.5 tonnes and contains recyclable steel, copper, and aluminium. Prioritising recovery from nacelles can help offset the high costs of managing less-recyclable elements like blades and composite packaging.

While creative reuse projects—like surfboards or bus shelters made from turbine blades—draw attention, these novelty applications are not scalable solutions. See: ACCIONA’s repurposed surfboards. We must move beyond symbolic gestures toward systems-level circularity—design for disassembly, supply chain innovation, and embedded reverse logistics.

The key here is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Wind developers and turbine manufacturers must take on full lifecycle accountability. At a minimum, this should include funding recovery programs—but it must also drive product and packaging redesign, set reuse targets, and ensure decommissioning is planned from day one. With projections of 10,000 tonnes of blade waste annually by 2030—and 300,000 by 2050—the case for change is compelling.

The NSW Government’s Wind Energy Guideline is a step in the right direction, requiring Environmental Impact Statements to include waste classification, recovery strategies, and circular design approaches. But not all jurisdictions require this level of detail. For real impact, these policy frameworks must be enforced and harmonised nationally, especially in regions already facing capacity constraints.

Wind energy is essential to Australia’s net zero future—but it must spin on a more circular axis.”

Lloyd Parker
Principal Environmental Consultant – Circular Economy
Arcadis