Three retired wind turbine blades were ground into concrete in Iowa. Today, it stands as a retaining wall in Downtown Des Moines

For years, giant wind turbine blades spin hundreds of feet above the ground, built tough enough to withstand punishing weather. But what happens when they are finally retired? In Iowa, three such blades have taken on a completely different job they are now helping hold back soil outside a credit union. A retaining wall at Premier Credit Union in downtown Des Moines was constructed using concrete blocks containing recycled material equivalent to three decommissioned wind turbine blades. The project comes from Iowa-based Renewablade, which has spent years developing a way to grind the difficult-to-recycle structures and incorporate the material into concrete products.

Why old wind turbine blades are a recycling challenge

Wind turbine blades are designed for durability. They contain materials including fibreglass, resin, foam, wood and steel, creating a composite structure that isn't as straightforward to recycle as metals from other parts of a turbine. Their sheer size creates another headache. Radio Iowa reports that an average blade is around 116 feet long, while some approach 200 feet. Transporting and disposing of structures that large can be difficult and expensive. Renewablade co-founder Nick Wylie told the outlet there is “pretty much an endless supply” of retired blades, adding that the company has received them from as far away as Maine and Washington.

From giant blades to a concrete wall

Renewablade's solution begins by cutting the blades into manageable sections. They are transported to the company's facility, shredded into smaller pieces and processed for incorporation into a ready-mix concrete blend. The resulting material is used to manufacture products including retaining-wall blocks, commercial barriers and larger blocks for agricultural applications. At Premier Credit Union, enough recycled composite material to represent three complete blades went into the retaining-wall blocks. “This wall shows what's possible when we think differently about waste,” Renewablade's Brian Meng said in a report by American Recycler.

The idea is already moving beyond one wall

The Des Moines wall wasn't the end of the experiment. In 2026, 28 concrete barriers containing material equivalent to another retired blade were installed around a construction site at Mercy College of Health Sciences in downtown Des Moines. KCCI reported that Renewablade has sourced material from around the Midwest and even processed blades damaged during the 2024 Greenfield tornado.

Wylie said the company had to develop its own equipment, formula and admixtures because there wasn't an off-the-shelf system for what it wanted to manufacture. There could also be an economic advantage. Radio Iowa reported that Renewablade's 10-foot barriers sell for around $500 each, compared with roughly $1,200 to $1,500 for the conventional DOT-certified barriers cited by Wylie.

Giving renewable-energy equipment another job

The Premier Credit Union wall illustrates an intriguing approach to one of wind energy's end-of-life problems. Instead of asking how to make an enormous blade disappear, Renewablade is asking what useful object its materials could become next. Three blades that once captured Iowa's winds are now doing something far less glamorous but remarkably practical: helping hold up a wall in downtown Des Moines.