Using Plastic Waste in Road Construction, An Eco-Friendly Way of Plastic Waste Friendly Way of Plastic Waste Disposal
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Date
2019-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The rapid increase in the use of plastic materials in the recent years led to the
accumulation of extreme amounts of plastic waste. Thermoplastics such as PET,
PE, PP, PS and PVC as well as materials that derived from these are the type of
plastic most used and consequently create environmental problems.
Landfill, incineration and recycling remains the primary options for solid waste
management. One critical determinant of the acceptability of these options is the
different health risks associated with each.
The plastic waste that burnt and dumped in landfill sites can be recycled and
used for different purpose. This includes the use of waste plastic in construction
of asphalt road. By recycling waste plastic, it is possible to protect the
environment from contamination.
Using waste plastic in asphalt road construction as an aggregate binder is one of
the recent plastic waste approach. This will help us to avoid the environmental
pollution from open-air burning and landfill of plastic waste.
In this research the applicability of the waste plastic as a binder, together with
Bitumen has investigated, for this purpose, the plastic (Polyethylene
terephthalate ) and bitumen mix was checked for certain quality that needed to
be a good binder. The natural bitumen had modified by adding Polyethylene
Terephthalate (PET) in different percentage by weight of bitumen. The tests that
conducted on the modified bitumen quality are Ductility, Penetration, and
Softening point of the plastic modified bitumen mix. Also the load bearing
capacity of the modified bitumen asphalt (aggregate with modified bitumen mix),
had been tested.
The research had conducted the two methods of asphalt road making using
plastic waste.
After doing the quality test, the research identified what percentage by weight of
plastic that should be mixed with bitumen to give a good quality of modified
bitumen, accordingly 8% by weight in wet process and around 16% by weight of
Polyethylene Terephthalate(PET) in dry process were able to give good binding
property. This can enable us to recycle around 52.4 tons of PET waste (per
kilometer of road) that would have gone to landfill and/or to open air burning and
Incineration.
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Keywords
Plastic Waste, Plastic Waste Disposal, Eco-Friendly, Road Construction