Ørsted commits to reuse, recycle or recover 100% of blades from repowering or end-of-design-life decommissioning of its onshore and offshore wind farms.

Test: since June 2021, have all blades from repowering or end-of-design-life decommissioning of Ørsted's onshore and offshore wind farms been reused, recycled or recovered, including energy or material recovery, rather than landfilled? True: reporting or third-party accounts show that all such decommissioned blades were handled by reuse, recycling or recovery, and the commitment remains in force. Mostly true: this holds, with a trivial exception or a minor gap in reporting detail. Mixed: some decommissioning projects complied and others did not. Mostly false: most decommissioned blades were landfilled or stored with no reuse, recycling or recovery route. False: documented landfilling of Ørsted blades from these activities, or the commitment was withdrawn. Storage pending treatment does not by itself count as a breach. Ørsted's own reports count only if they state how the blades were actually handled.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Ørsted Vows Not to Use Wind Turbine Blade Landfilling offshorewind.biz · 3 June 2021

   “Up until now, Ørsted has only decommissioned the offshore wind farm Vindeby in Denmark. The company reused all the blades from the eleven wind turbines.”

2. E2 Ørsted Vows Not to Use Wind Turbine Blade Landfilling offshorewind.biz · 3 June 2021

   “Ørsted said that it would not use landfilling for decommissioned blades, should the challenge with recycling take longer to solve than anticipated. Instead, the company will temporarily store the blades.”

3. E3 Ørsted to recover, reuse or recycle wind turbine blades CompositesWorld

   “Ørsted notes that the issue of what to do with wind turbine blades when they’re no longer needed is a headache for the industry. This is because the composite materials blades are made from can be difficult to recycle, with Ørsted pointing out that “most” blades, once decommissioned, are landfilled.”

4. E4 Foto: Ørsted Effektivitet (Danish procurement journal), authors Christine Klara Rohde and Johan Lund Mosbek · 23 July 2025

   “Ørsted pledged never to send turbine blades to landfill, opting instead”

E1 reports that before the commitment the only Ørsted decommissioning was Vindeby, where all blades were reused, but that predates June 2021. E2, E3 and E4 restate the pledge and the temporary-storage fallback. None of them report how blades from any repowering or decommissioning after June 2021 were actually handled. The evidence neither confirms compliance nor documents landfilling or withdrawal of the commitment, so the claim cannot be resolved.