The "Voice of the Recycling Industry", the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. (ISRI) representing more than 1,550 companies in 21 US chapters has awarded the Canadian company, Wind Simplicity, its highest award for the sustainable design and manufacture of the Windancer™ small wind turbine.
High-efficiency, compact and noise-free, the Windancer horizontal-axis wind turbine was invented in 2004 by the father–daughter team, Sharolyn Vettese and Alfred Mathieu PhD. According to the company, it is “the world’s greenest wind turbine”, sporting blades made out of aluminium. A metal with a cradle-to-cradle lifecycle, aluminium can be recycled over and over without losing its properties.
“Instead of potentially being incinerated or ending up in landfill, a current sustainable design blind-spot in wind turbine rotor blades that are made of hard-to-recycle composite fibres such as fiberglass, the Windancer can be recycled after many decades of use,” says the company.
Another benefit of not using composite fibres in the manufacture of the Wind Simplicity’s unique small wind turbine is minimising hazardous constituents and toxic air emissions and solvents that can also impact the workforce and the environment.
Wind Simplicity is based in Ontario, and the Design for Recycling® (DfR) award was presented to Ms. Vettese, Wind Simplicity CEO, President and Inventor, by John Sacco, ISRI chairman, in Los Angeles on April 9 at the ISRI convention.
“The Design for Recycling Award encapsulates the concept of a sustainable product life cycle. As a company in the renewable energy business, we at Wind Simplicity are delighted to win this prestigious award,” said Ms. Vettese. “We thank ISRI for the honour and for the important and outstanding work it does to promote and educate companies about sustainable design."
“Wind Simplicity demonstrated great creativity in incorporating DfR criteria into the manufacturing processes, thereby making their wind turbine completely recyclable,” said Manny Bodner, Chair of the ISRI Task Force on DfR. “Wind Simplicity is a textbook example of incorporating DfR principles into their manufacturing process.”
“Wind Simplicity gets it and gets it right,” Robin Wiener, ISRI President, said. “They are proof positive that you can manufacture a sustainable product – a product that helps sustain both energy and your bottom line.”
ISRI created Design for Recycling® (DfR), a voluntary program that urges manufacturers to think about making a product that can be recycled right from the drawing-board stage. Such design benefits not only the environment but the economy as well, as shareholders and consumers recognize the benefits of designing a product that will have many lives.
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