Authors: Amol More
Abstract:There has been a considerable imbalance between the availability of conventional building materials and their demand in the recent past. On the other hand the laterite quarry waste is abundantly available and the disposal of waste plastics (PET, PP, etc.) is a biggest challenge, as repeated recycling of PET bottles poses a potential danger of being transformed to a carcinogenic material and only a small proportion of PET bottles are being recycled. Because of costly conventional recycling techniques, there has been an increased demand for more scientific and innovative technologies to effectively recycle these materials. One such effort is the efficient use of waste plastic and laterite quarry waste with a small quantity of bitumen, to develop an alternative building material such as bricks with negligible water absorption and satisfactory strength in comparison with Laterite stone to satisfy the increasing demand of conventional building materials. Eco-bricks, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles filled with mixed inorganic waste, have become a low cost construction material and a valid recycling method to reduce waste disposal in regions where industrial recycling is not yet available. Because Eco-bricks are filled with mixed recovered materials, potential recycling of its constituents is difficult at the end of its life. This study proposes considering Eco-bricks filled with a single inorganic waste material to work as a time capsule, with potential for recovering the filling material when other ways of waste valorization are available within those communities that currently have no better recycling options.
Keywords: Plastic bricks, Eco-bricks, polyethylene terephthalate (PET),Waste plastic
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