This Ohio startup turns wind turbine blades into extraordinary park benches

Canvus turns retired wind turbine blades into lovely park benches, planters, and picnic tables for public areas throughout the US.

The US Division of Power estimates that the common charge of wind turbine retirements will embrace as much as 9,000 blades per yr by 2026, and that quantity will solely develop. So Rocky River, Ohio-based startup Canvus is conserving end-of-life wind turbine blades out of landfills by turning them into practical public artwork.

Massive wind turbine producers reminiscent of Vestas, GE, and Avangrid have despatched hundreds of blades to Canvus’s manufacturing unit since its founding in April 2022. Canvus, in flip, collaborates with nonprofits and civic organizations to supply cities and cities throughout the US with park benches, tables, and planters created from these wind turbine blades. The corporate additionally works with a community of artists who’re commissioned to color on its merchandise in its “primed and prepared” program.

The blades are introduced into the manufacturing unit in 40-foot sections, minimize utilizing a rope noticed, and completed with epoxy paint. Along with the perimeters, Canvus makes use of recycled supplies from different industries, reminiscent of previous tires, sneakers, and plastic waste.

Canvus’s vp of company affairs, Brian Donahue, informed me that the corporate has bought “lots of if not hundreds” of its merchandise to US communities. He stated the corporate’s objective is to deal with 10-15,000 blades a yr however acknowledged that it might want to broaden its product line to take action.

How they’re bought

The turbine blade recycler not solely makes inventive merchandise; it additionally makes use of a inventive enterprise mannequin. Communities make a wish list of the Canvus merchandise they need, after which these merchandise, with a median worth of round $6,000, are then paid for by sponsors. (Canvus’s on-line sponsorship course of jogs my memory of a marriage reward registry web site.) Sponsors may very well be anybody from a household that wishes to commemorate a cherished one to an area enterprise that wishes to extend its visibility. Every bench includes a QR code that gives extra details about that sponsor.

For instance, town of Westerville, Ohio, has put 9 Canvus benches and hybrid/bench planters on its want checklist for its Ohio to Erie path, which is a leisure long-distance outside path for hikers and cyclists. 4 of its benches have sponsors, and 5 are nonetheless up for grabs. For instance, somebody can nonetheless sponsor the Faye Classic Hybrid for the path – it prices $3,781, and it options seating created from recycled tires and sneakers and recycled aluminum toes.

Canvus’s merchandise can solely bought on this trend, so if you happen to needed to splurge on one in all its wind turbine blade benches to your house, you’d be out of luck. It’s Canv-US. Geddit?

Try the video under to see how Canvus’s merchandise are made:

Learn extra: A Danish wind turbine giant just discovered how to recycle all blades

Images: Canvus

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