Creating circular industrial symbiosis for end-of-life wind turbine blades from wind power and construction value chains

The upcoming scarcity of certain mineral resources in the construction industry has been known for years, with some warning that extractable ores may be exhausted within several decades. 1 Although this has been accepted for scarcer elements such as molybdenum or zinc, the scarcity of preconceived “abundant” resources such as sand or gravel is difficult to acknowledge. Nevertheless, recent studies have highlighted this scarcity at the local scale and connected it to its intense use by the construction industry as an aggregate. 2,2 The construction industry is the sink for a large fraction of mineral resources extracted (e.g., 3 ) and therefore should also lead the way in reducing the use of virgin materials while also finding ways to recirculate waste materials.