The Green Energy Company That Leaves You With No Recycling Problems

Date: 31/03/24

There are endless advantages to choosing a green energy company to help you access clean, renewable energy, such as wind and solar power. However, as some users are discovering, these solutions often come with a hidden cost.

Even the most efficient and effective green technology can create waste at the end of its operating life. Dealing with this waste can counteract many of the positive benefits of using green power. Fortunately, when you choose Think Hire as your green energy company, you don’t have to face these issues. All your equipment is leased from us, and returned at the end of the hire period, so you’re never left with the problem of what to do with redundant equipment.

The problem with wind farms

A typical example of the green energy waste issue is wind turbine blades. Wind farms were amongst the earliest green technologies, with Scotland’s oldest windfarm, at Hagshaw Hill, coming online more than 28 years ago. In that time, it has provided lots of renewable energy, but inevitably, it has now come to the end of its useful life. New wind turbine designs are larger, and can produce more than ten times the power, making these original turbines obsolete.

Unfortunately, while as much as 90% of a wind turbine can be recycled, the blades themselves are a different story. Made from fibreglass, they are designed to withstand severe weather for years on end. This inherent durability inevitably makes them extremely difficult to recycle. Many current solutions, such as heating the waste to separate the glass fibres from the polymers, are highly energy intensive. Meanwhile, alternative chemical solutions are just as bad for the environment.

How big a problem is wind turbine waste?

Wind turbines are designed to last around 25 years, although advances in technology can make them out-dated much sooner than that. This means that the next decade is going to see a significant rise in wind turbine waste, as the early systems start to be taken down.

WindEurope, the European wind energy agency, estimates that as many as 14,000 wind turbines will need to be dismantled over the next five years in Europe alone. This figure then rises to around 5,700 turbines per year from 2030. In total, it is estimated that there could be as much as 43 million tonnes of wind turbine waste by 2050.

Of course, wind energy isn’t the only renewable that creates waste. On estimate says that as much as 50million tonnes of PV solar panels could end up in landfill by 2050.

Hiring reduces waste

By hiring your renewable energy equipment from a green energy company such as Think Hire, you avoid all the problems of dealing with waste at the end of the equipment’s life. That means you can enjoy all the benefits of low cost, low emissions energy, with none of the drawbacks.

Think Hire have years of experience in dealing with renewable energy systems and we know how to get the most out of our equipment by extending its lifespan through expert maintenance and refurbishment. Think Hire also knows how to dispose of our waste in the most environmentally friendly way. We ensure that we maximise the recovery of raw materials from every single piece of equipment and minimise the waste that goes to landfill.

And because Think Hire takes care of all of this, it means your company doesn’t have to. Instead of being faced with problems disposing of your equipment, you simply return your hire equipment to us and organise your next hire of the very latest clean energy technology.

Don’t let waste disposal issues take the wind out of your renewable energy efforts. Find out more about how Think Hire can provide access to clean, green energy, with none of the drawbacks of owning your own equipment, by contacting our team today.

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