Canvus, an Ohio-based startup, manufactures park benches and other products from repurposed wind turbine blades.
Photographer: Brian Kaiser/BloombergRetired Wind Turbine Blades Live on as Park Benches and Picnic Tables
To keep turbine blades from piling up in landfills, startups like Canvus are turning them into new products — and free marketing for wind power.
At first glance, the benches outside the Great Lakes Science Center in downtown Cleveland seem unremarkable. But a closer inspection shows that their droplet-shaped shells aren’t made from wood or metal. A scan of the attached QR codes reveals even more: These benches used to be wind turbine blades.
Painted by local artists and weighing in at about 500 pounds (230 kilograms) apiece, the benches were crafted by Rocky River, Ohio-based Canvus, which will install 10 more in the same location later this month. Altogether, the dozen benches reuse roughly a quarter of a single 150-foot (45-meter) wind turbine blade.