This activity provides a practical example of the selection of the appropriate European Waste Code to categorize waste composite sections obtained from the dismantling of a wind blade.

Extended Waste Codes for composites


This activity follows the previous video, which mentioned the lack of European Waste Code to categorize composites and Extended Producer Responsibility regimes applied to composite-rich products, providing a practical example.

The students are asked to identify the most suitable European Waste Code to categorize composite sections obtained from a decommissioned wind blade.

When waste is generated, in this case via the decommissioning of a wind blade, it must be classified according to the list of EWC Codes (European Waste Codes). This classification standard is used for waste transportation, waste treatment, and data aggregation for statistics and reporting. It has been introduced by a Decision of the European Commission (2000/532/EC), which also provides details for the categorization of hazardous waste.

The EWC classification is based on a six-digit codification. The first two digits identify the general waste source. The third and fourth digits provide a more focused identification of the waste and its generation process. The final two digits precisely identify the waste category.

Go to the activity.

Cobat CompositiFigure 1: photograph owned by Cobat Compositi

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This simple activity had two main scopes:

  • The first is to briefly present to the students the European Waste Code structure and its codification logic, which is applied also for all the other composite waste sources (for example, composites manufacturing scraps are often categorized under the “07 waste from organic chemical processes” waste origin code).
  • The second is to provide concrete evidence about the absence of a waste coding dedicated to composites. The most accurate choice to label composites from wind blades demolition is “plastic”. Nevertheless, composites embed a multi-material structure which makes them much more peculiar than plastics, especially considering their end-of-life management.