Photo: Renewablade
(Des Moines, IA) -- Recycled wind turbine blades are getting a second life helping to secure a construction site in Downtown Des Moines.
Graham Construction is currently using 28 barriers made from recycled wind turbine blades to secure the construction site at Mercy College of Health Sciences. Nick Wylie with Renewablade, the company that re-purposes wind turbine blades, tells WHO Radio News the process begins with collecting retired blades no longer being used on windmills:
"We can go on-site and cut them and then haul them off, so when we're hauling them, it's not on a 200 foot trailer like you see a lot of the new ones going down. We're hauling them on a regular flatbed after they're cut into smaller pieces. Then we'll take them to our facility, we shred them up into smaller pieces, and then turn them into concrete."
The current project at Mercy College of Health Sciences marks the second construction project in downtown Des Moines this year that has used infrastructure made from recycled wind turbine blades. Premier Credit Union completed a project earlier this year using a retaining wall made with the equivalent material of three full-length wind turbine blades.