Performance Evaluation of Plastic Concrete Modified with E-Waste Plastic as a Partial Replacement of Coarse Aggregate

Abstract

Plastic electronic waste (E-waste) is constantly growing around the world owing to the rapid increase in industrialization, urbanization, and population. The current annual production rate of E-waste is 3–4% in the world and is expected to increase to 55 million tons per year by 2025. To reduce the detrimental impact on the environment and save natural resources, one of the best solutions is to incorporate waste plastic in the construction industry to produce green concrete. This study examines the use of manufactured plastic coarse aggregate (PCA) obtained from E-waste as a partial replacement of natural coarse aggregate (NCA) in concrete. Six types of concrete mix with 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% substitution of NCA (by volume) with PCA are prepared and tested. This study investigates the effect of manufactured PCA on the fresh and hardened characteristics of concrete. The properties of recycled plastic aggregate concrete (RPAC) studied include workability, fresh density, dry density, compressive strength (CS), splitting tensile strength (STS), flexural strength (FS), sorptivity coefficient, abrasion resistance, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), and alternate wetting and drying (W–D). The results indicate that the CS, STS, and FS of RPAC declined in the range of 9.9–52.7%, 7.8–47.5%, and 11–39.4%, respectively, for substitution ratios of 10–50%. However, the results also indicate that the incorporation of PCA (10–50%) improved the workability and durability characteristics of concrete. A significant decrement in the sorptivity coefficient, abrasion loss, and UPV value was observed with an increasing amount of PCA. Furthermore, RPAC containing different percentages of PCA revealed better results against alternate W–D cycles with respect to ordinary concrete.

Production of Biodegradable Polymeric Composites with the Addition of Waste

“…Approximately, 52 kg of waste is discarded annually per person, including bottles, medical supplies, food packaging [ 3 ], plastic bags [ 5 ], clothing and building materials [ 6 ]. Electronic waste alone has an annual production rate of 3% to 4% in the world, and this value is estimated to increase about to 55 million tons per year by 2025 [ 7 ] and to 0.2 billion tons by 2060 [ 5 ]. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic experienced by the world increased plastic consumption, especially disposables that were used as personal protective equipment [ 5 ].…”

Performance Study of Waste PE-Modified High-Grade Asphalt

“…Waste PE has also been widely used in civil engineering [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. This is reflected in its application in concrete [ 11 ], retaining walls [ 12 ], water engineering [ 13 ], and other applications.…”

Analysis of the Embodied Energy and CO2 Emissions of Ready-Mixed Concrete: A Case Study in Cuenca, Ecuador

“…Regarding the consumption of raw materials, it has been identified in the literature that the aim is to reduce the amount of clinker used in the manufacturing of cement and the replacement of part of the raw material by adding recycled materials [ 33 , 34 ] or wastes [ 35 ] in the concrete. A study carried out in Ecuador determined that the production of one ton of cement required 3191.95 MJ of energy, of which 91.4% corresponds to the production of clinker [ 36 ].…”