A comprehensive review of sustainable solutions for reusing wind turbine blade waste materials

By 2050, approximately 43 million tons of wind-turbine blade (WTB) waste materials will have accumulated, emphasizing the critical importance of effective waste management strategies for WTBs at the end of their life cycle to ensure sustainability. Comparing current WTB waste management methods, reuse emerges as a highly-sustainable method that can also serve as a sustainable solution to environmental challenges, including global warming and natural resource depletion associated with civil engineering activities. This paper presents a comprehensive review of sustainable solutions for reusing WTB waste materials in civil engineering applications. Repurposing WTB waste materials as structural elements in housing, urban furniture, recreational facilities, and slow-traffic infrastructure can be a viable option. WTB waste can also be utilized in powder, fiber, and aggregate forms as an eco-friendly material for construction and pavement (e.g., mortar, concrete, asphalt) to replace cement and natural resource aggregates while meeting necessary strength and performance standards. Through a detailed analysis of reusing WTB waste materials, economic and environmental challenges are also discussed. According to the findings, the properties of mortar, concrete, and asphalt can be affected by the type, shape, and content of fibers, polymers, and impurities present in the blades, as well as the cutting direction. Furthermore, while reuse is considered a sustainable end-of-life (EoL) option for WTB waste management from both economic and environmental perspectives, further research is required to fully understand the environmental consequences of this method.