I thought the main problem with recycling them were the fiber composite blades? If they keep those but just swap the metal tower with a wooden one they've achieved exactly nothing in practice.

Well replacing the tower reduces embodied emissions from the steel. Sure that's not as big as an issue if the steel was already recycled (and would be recycled again) using an electric arc furnace powered by renewables, but the wood is actually negative since it's storing carbon while it's not decomposing.

The blades themselves isn't really much of an issue if you actually compare it to fossil fuels - for example, coal fly ash was 18% of all waste generated in Australia around 2019 (this is likely a bit less now as one or two major coal plants have since been decommissioned).

I think it's astronomically unlikely that wind turbine blades would ever be that kind of proportion of a country's waste, but it was just a normal thing for coal. And gas and oil have a similar problem, it's just harder to see since it's fine particulate matter belched into the air instead of heavier ash that you have to deal with!

1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-10/coal-ash-has-become-o...