The circularity of wind turbines

Five wind turbines have been delivered to the quay at our Vlaardingen yard. Prior to shipping, these wind turbines had been dismantled at the location along the Hartelkanaal canal where they had been in use. It was a joint operation with Business in Wind, the company contracted by the proprietor to decommission the wind turbines.

Once the wind turbines had arrived at our yard, the big challenge started for Jansen Recycling Group. The parts had to be hoisted out of the ship one by one. There were four mast sections, a rotor made up of a hub and three blades, a generator, a drivetrain and a nacelle. These were all large and heavy parts, with the heaviest weighing as much as 63 metric tons! Day after day, all our colleagues worked hard to dismantle the parts of the wind turbines, which included cutting mast sections and shortening turbine blades. Jansen Recycling Group turns the iron recovered from these parts into a secondary raw material that can be melted into new iron.

The most important part of decommissioning and dismantling wind turbines is to sustainably use the materials recovered from these turbines. Take the turbine blades, for example, which are made of a kind of glass fibre called thermosetting polymer. During preparations for the dismantling of the turbine blades, we realised that there are actually very few ways to recycle thermosetting polymer. Luckily, we found a solution to turn the materials recovered into a secondary raw material. This raw material is subsequently used to make new plastics.

This is an entirely new process and Jansen Recycling Group managed to tie together the various links of the chain in this project, which ultimately produced a fine end result. We are hugely proud of having been a part of this fantastic project and having played a key role in converting the materials recovered into secondary raw materials.