Washington’s Senate on Monday unanimously approved a bill that directs Washington State University to study the feasibility of recycling wind turbine blades once they have reached the end of their useful lives.

The state’s House of Representatives had passed Senate Bill 5287 with some amendments, which the Senate reconciled on Monday. The bill calls for a study by the Washington State University Extension Energy Program to be turned in to the legislature by Dec. 1.

The legislation will go to Gov. Jay Inslee for signature.

“What we do with wind turbine blades has become an environmental concern,” said Sen. Jeff Wilson (R), who introduced the bill. “We’ve been putting up windmills on a large scale since the 1990s to make our energy green and clean. But those blades don’t last forever, and simply cutting them up and dumping them in landfills seems to defeat the spirit.”

SB 5287 calls for the study to cover:

• the “cost, feasibility and environmental impact” of various methods of disposing of blades, including the potential for “reuse, repurposing and recycling;”
• the availability of blade recycling facilities in Washington and other states;
• possible incentives for creating recycling facilities in Washington;
• “[v]arious mechanisms for establishing recycling requirements, or recycled content standards;”
• options for “the design of a state-managed product stewardship program” for turbine blades.

The average lifespan of a wind turbine blade is 20 years, according to a Senate committee memo; the average length is 170 feet. Washington’s wind farms comprise about 3,400 MW of generating capacity. 

The study also would look at how a state-managed disposal program could be managed and examine the possibility of recycling blades made of steel, plastic and fiberglass.

Several weeks ago, the Senate Environment, Energy and Technology Committee heard testimony that the U.S. does not have a turbine blade recycling facility.