Estimation of glass and carbon fiber reinforced plastic waste from end-of-life rotor blades of wind power plants within the European Union

•Glass and carbon fiber reinforced plastic waste masses within the European Union.•Material specific weight functions in dependence on rotor blade length.•Realistic projection of masses by normally distributed lifetimes of rotor baldes.•Simulation study to account for uncertainties within the estimation. The European Union is aiming at a circular economy and increased resource efficiency, which requires a waste management at the end-of-life of products. This is especially challenging for new and innovative products for which no recycling infrastructure exists so far. Wind power plants are such a product, for which large amounts of waste are expected within the next years as more and more plants reach their end-of-life. Especially the end-of-life rotor blades of wind power plants pose challenges with regard to waste management, since treatment options for the installed glass and carbon fiber reinforced plastics are still in a development stage. Moreover, material specific characteristics and technical aspects require separate treatment of these materials. To plan efficient treatment infrastructure, detailed knowledge on future waste streams is required. Against this background, this paper aims at estimating the mass of glass and carbon fiber reinforced plastic waste from rotor blades. To do so, we derive material specific weight functions and material specific shares to calculate the amount of installed glass and carbon fiber reinforced plastics in rotor blades. We apply normally distributed lifetimes to project the calculated installed masses into the future and account for uncertainties within a simulation study. The estimation model is applied to a dataset of wind power plants within the European Union. Based on the considered dataset, we estimate that 570 [Mt] of fiber reinforced plastic waste will occur between 2020 and 2030 in the European Union of which 18 [Mt] are carbon fiber reinforced plastic waste.