Recycling a yogurt container is easy. But what about a wind turbine over 100 meters tall? That’s the challenge addressed by the CICLO Transmissions Project, an initiative aiming to recycle and recover 100% of wind turbine materials, driving circular economy practices in the renewable energy sector.
Recycling Wind Turbines 100%
A Major Challenge Already Underway
Last updated: December 2025
Today, around 83% of a wind turbine’s materials can be recycled or reused. The real headache lies in the blades, made from highly resistant composite materials that are extremely difficult to separate and process using conventional methods. And of course, they can’t simply be tossed into the yellow recycling bin.
To change this, the CICLO project (2025–2028) brings together eight companies and six research centers, coordinated by the GAIKER Technological Center, part of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA). Its mission is to transform wind turbine blades into new, useful, and sustainable materials, extending their life beyond the wind farm.
An Ambitious (and Much-Needed) Goal
The consortium’s purpose is to develop new recycling and recovery technologies for the composite materials used in blades, housings, nacelles, and other turbine components. In other words: to give them a second life with the lowest possible environmental impact.
Key technical objectives include:
- Ensuring that at least 90% of recycled fiber can be recovered and reused.
- Increasing by-product recovery efficiency to above 75%.
- Reducing the formation of organic pollutants in thermal processes by 50%.
- Improving the enzymatic degradation of resins such as epoxy, polyester, and polyurethane.
Ambitious indeed. But if innovation teams share one trait, it’s that the impossible just takes a little longer to achieve (and usually comes wearing a lab coat).
Toward Infinitely Recyclable Wind Turbines
Once these advancements are consolidated, it will be possible to create second-generation structural materials with 100% recycled content, closing the full life cycle of wind turbines. This milestone could mark a turning point in the clean energy sector.
Because if the wind itself is renewable… why shouldn’t the materials that harness it be as well?