AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON PRODUCTION OF BRICK BY USING A MIXTURE OF WASTE PLASTIC AND SAND

Abstract

Plastics are the most multipurpose man made materials in the world and generally used as medicine package, liquid container, water bottles, pipes and roof cladding etc. Plastic has a disastrous impact on our environment because of its non-degradable rather very slow nature of degradation. It is a well-known fact that plastic takes almost 400 years of time to decompose completely. Improper disposal of plastic has a negative effect on the marine life, ground water and on our environment. In Ethiopia out of total 83 plastic bottled water factories only 4 factories recycle the plastic bottle and remaining plastic bottles does not get recycled and disposed safely which is a cause of concern from environment perspective. So the present research work has been conducted to use waste plastic in the construction activities in form of producing bricks which would help minimizing the negative effects of waste plastics in our environment along with producing cost effective alternative engineering masonry plastic bricks. Experimental tests were conducted by casting several test specimens of bricks of size 25 cm x 12 cm x 6 cm with different plastic to sand ratios such as 20:80, 25:75, 30:70, 35:65, 40:60 and 45:55. The brick specimens were tested for their physical properties according to ASTM specifications. The test results showed that the specimen with 20:80 percentage ratios has fewer bonds between plastic and sand because of which it does not give a proper rectangular shape of plastic bricks while 50:50 plastic to sand ratio has not been mixed well. The compressive strength and water absorption test results indicated that bricks made with 35% of plastic and 65% sand gives higher compressive strength and lower water absorption. Finally optimum plastic bricks found to be qualified according to negligible weathering of ASTM specification, ES 89 : 2001 and British code depending on physical properties of material strength and durability which are used for load bearing structural wall for minimum story building and non-load bearing wall for any structural masonry building