Utilization of Waste Plastic in the Manufacturing of Bricks Along with Quarry Dust and M-Sand

Plastics are key resources in circular economy and recycling after the end of useful life with economic value creation and minimal damage to environment is the key to their sustainable management. Studies in a large stream of researches have explored impregnating waste plastics in concrete and reported encouraging results with multiple benefits. The present study makes a critical review of some of these findings and gleans some common useful trends in the properties reported in these studies. The study also presents results of experimental work on bricks made of non-recyclable waste thermoplastic granules constituting 0 to 20% by weight, 4kg of fly ash, cement and sand making up the remainder. The bricks were cured under water for 28 days and baked at temperature ranging from 90oC to 110oC for 2 hours. The key characteristics of these bricks are found to be lightweight, porous, of low thermal conductivity, and of appreciable mechanical strengths. Though such bricks hold promise, no similar study appears to have been reported so far. Unlike other processes of making porous bricks, which usually involve incineration to burn combustible materials in order to form pores with implication of high carbon emission, the proposed process is non-destructive in that the bricks are merely baked at low temperature, sufficient to melt the waste plastic that gets diffused within the body of the bricks. The compressive strengths after addition of waste plastic are same as normal brick strength. And also reduce the water absorption capacity of brick is reduced compare with nominal brick. Efflorescence values were low than the normal brick. The bricks are likely to add energy efficiency in buildings and help create economic value to manufacturers, thereby, encouraging the ecosystem of plastic waste management involving all actors in the value chain. A mathematical model is developed to predict compressive strength of bricks at varying plastic contents. The study introduces a new stran