Re-Use of Hospital Plastic Waste in Asphalt Mixes as Partial Replacement of Coarse Aggregate

Abstract

About 1.3 billion tons of waste is being generated in the world annually. This waste is a cause of various diseases. Open dumping of waste also destroys valuable agricultural land. Various researchers have beneficially used plastic waste in cement concrete and asphalt concrete in the past. This study aims at the use of aggregates, made from different types of plastic waste, as partial replacement of coarse aggregates in asphalt mixes. For this purpose waste is collected from different hospitals of the city. Sorted plastic from the waste consists of 64% low density polyethene, 32% high density polyethene and 4% of polypropylene. Plastic waste is shredded, heated and after cooling, pulverizes manually and mechanically. Specific gravity of plastic aggregates is 0.96. Water absorption and soundness values are 4.68% and 7.68% respectively. Impact, crushing and Loss Angeles values of plastic aggregates are 0.7%, 0.5%, and 1.1% respectively. Replacement of natural aggregates by plastic aggregates in asphalt mixes is done up to 25% with 5% incremental increase. Density of asphalt mixes decreases to 2060 kg/m 3 . Consequently flow increases to 5.73 mm. Maximum stability is at 20% replacement i.e . 34.57 KN. Cost analysis of the study indicates that 205% increase in stability are observed with 219% increase in cost.