Topic 1: Waste Construction Material

In the Philippines, construction industry has grown rapidly over the past years. According

to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), 36,002 approved building permits for construction

has been recorded for the first quarter of 2018. This reflects an increase of 2.6 percent from the

35,101 constructions recorded during the same quarter in 2017. This statistic is an indication of

much higher number of construction projects for the years to come. Constructing these edifices,

buildings, roadways, bridges, would not be possible without the world’s most widely used

construction material---Concrete.

Concrete is a construction material composed of cement, aggregates, mixed with water and

hardens over time. Seventy percent of the world’s population lives in a structure that contains

concrete and about 10 billion tons of concrete are produced every year. However, despite its widely

use, this construction material greatly affects the environment because it uses up large quantity of

natural resources. The rapid urbanization and industrial growth has led to spend billions in the

constructions and place huge demands on infrastructures and public-sector buildings, which

increases the demand in construction materials including concrete. As a result, it generally became

construction wastes which increases the burden on landfill sites. Demolishing of old infrastructures

is not also excused to this as the removed concrete and other demolished materials are

automatically considered as waste.

Studies showed that U.S. makes over 100 million of tons of these wastes every year,

approximately 29% came from construction sectors. Another study shows that 70 million tons are

produced every year in U.K. and 50% of landfill volume are consists construction and demolition
waste (C & D waste). Countries that are part of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) such as Saudi

Arabia and UAE generates 80 million tons of waste, 53% of these originates from construction

and demolition. Other countries like Hong Kong, China, India and Australia have the same

problem with these wastes. Globally, approximately 10-30% of C & D wastes are disposed in

landfills. The excessive usage of blast mountain rock for production of gravel is also very alarming

as it becomes an environmental concern. This signify the importance of reduce, reuse and recycle

in every local state regarding with this waste-generated problem. Applying the 3Rs in C & D waste,

which contains mostly of concrete waste, gives a solution for both utilization of natural resources

and waste disposal. In this thesis, thorough study to establish a recycled material to eliminate C &

D wastes has been developed.

Aggregates is primarily one of composition of concrete that can be recycled. Most common

method is crushing the concrete to produce coarse aggregate. Over the years, this method is used

in the construction industry to eliminate or lessen the consumption of natural resources as well as

preventing more wastes from entering the landfill. In addition, this method can attain an

environmentally-friendly concrete. As of 2005, Countries like Netherlands (93%), Turkey (90%),

Australia (87%), Denmark (82%), Germany (18%) have the most construction waste to recycle.

Thus, the potential use of concrete waste from C & D waste, or sometimes metals like rebars, as a

recycle aggregate (RA) is possible. Still, these aggregates cannot be used without evaluating first

the strength that it can give to the concrete produced. Fortunately, many studies have already

concluded regarding the use of RA in concrete and many authors have proved the possibility of

using these aggregates to concrete. For instances, a study from Egypt by Ashraf M. Wagih and

company showed that concrete rubble can be completely replaced by recycled aggregate for most

structural concrete. Superplasticizers and higher cement content ranging from 400 to 450 kg/m 3
are used because the results point that full replacement of natural aggregates has less workability

and less concrete strength, although tensile strength and elasticity in this concrete are reduced by

25% and 15% respectively. Replacement by 25% RA is okay when it comes to structural concrete

performance but replacing 50% of RA can reduce the compressive strength ranging from 7% to

13% as well as in elastic modulus and split tensile strength. Silica fumes is also used for better

interfacial zone between new and old mortar and works as micro filler. A study by Shahid Kabir

proved that the specific gravity of crushed RA was lower than the natural aggregate due to the fact

that RA from demolished concrete has concrete crushed stone with old mortar adhering in it. On

the other hand, absorption value in RA is higher than the other. This was studied in saturated

surface dry condition. The bulk density of RA is lower than the natural aggregate mainly because

the number of voids in RA is higher resulting to higher porosity. Previous studies showed that

some characteristics of RA are consistently lower than the usual aggregate that is why it is

suggested to use different pozzolanic materials to enhance its properties. It is also necessary to

combine RA to a good quality of natural aggregate to achieve its structural standards. This certain

problems in RA hinders its way to be commonly adopt to the real-world application. For now, the

said aggregates are still being of inferior quality and more research must be conducted in the area

of supplementary unconventional materials along with the structural analysis of recycled aggregate

concrete on long term scale.

Recycled binder------------