Statewide Iowa — The Department of Natural resources has been holding meetings to discuss possible changes or improvements to the process of disposing of used wind turbine blades.
The DNR’s Aime Davidson says there are regulations in place already for disposing of the blades, but she says there are still challenges.
She says there have been some solutions worked out.
She says those concrete mixes are used for parking areas and planters. Davidson says there’s continued work on figuring out new formulations for blades going out to make them easier to recycle. Another aspect of the blades is making sure they don’t get backed up into big piles. Davidson says there are regulations that require recyclers to show they are indeed recycling the blades.
Davidson says they don’t want to necessarily stifle the recycling industry to keep it from having the quantity it needs. She says there has been one case of a pile of blades that has been forwarded to the Attorney General’s office, but the other piles have all been taken care of. The DNR’s ongoing meetings include the utility companies, industry representatives, and solid waste agencies, to develop recommendations.
Davidson says they are starting to put together some recommendations from those discussions.
Davidson says disposing of wind blades has become a topic of discussion in a lot of places.
Davidson says the use of solar panels is not as far along as wind turbines, but finding ways to dispose of the solar panels is something that looms as well.
