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LIMITED EDITION. The collection will be available for sale through El Ganso's official website and at its stores
ACCIONA Energía and El Ganso have today launched a new sneaker featuring materials from recycled wind turbine blades. This limited-edition line of shoes, named "El Ganso x ACCIONA", were presented during an event at the Jorge Juan store of El Ganso in Madrid.
The shoes’ soles have been manufactured using materials from dismantled wind turbine blades that have undergone a micronizing process. This groundbreaking technique consists of reducing the size of fiberglass and epoxy resins to microns, through an advanced mechanical transformation process. The resulting powder is combined with rubber to obtain a sole that maintains the strength, grip and durability of conventional shoes.
The "El Ganso x ACCIONA" model features an exclusive design that includes the brands of both companies and a reference to the origin of the recycled material used to make the sole, reflecting the commitment of both companies to sustainability, circularity, and innovation.
The collection will be available for sale through El Ganso's official website and at its stores.
SECOND LIFE
The shoes were manufactured using a 23-metre-long blade from the Aibar Wind Farm in Navarra, which has been operating since 1998. During its operational lifetime, the blade captured wind used to generate 12,500MWh of clean energy, which avoided the emission of 5,461 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, equivalent to the purifying effect of 4,160 trees.
Blade recycling is one of the challenges that the wind industry faces, as thousands of wind turbines approach the end of their operational lifetime. In Spain alone, an estimated 20,000 blades will need to be recycled in the near future.
Around 90% of a wind turbine is recyclable, as they are made of materials with established recycling chains. However, blades are more complex to recycle because they are made of composite materials such as glass fiber, carbon fiber, resins, and other polymers. The main challenge is to develop solutions that are both sustainable from an environmental standpoint and economically viable at large scale.
ACCIONA Energía is carrying out innovative wind turbine blade recycling projects such as this one and, additionally, it has recently announced the construction of Waste2Fiber, an industrial-scale wind blade recycling plant in Lumbier (Navarra).
Meanwhile, El Ganso continues advancing with this initiative in its commitment to sustainability, reflected in the use of materials of sustainable origin in the manufacture of more than 80% of its collection, with the aim of reaching 100% in the near future.