1 LABORATORY EVALUATION OF POLYMER MODIFIED MORTAR INCORPORATING WASTE LATEX PAINT EFFLUENT MOHAMMAD ISMAIL 1 , MUHAMMAD AAMER RAFIQUE BHUTTA 2 and AINUL HAEZAH NORUZMAN 3 1 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia. E-mail:mohammad@utm.my 2 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia. E-mail:marafique@utm.my 3 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia. E-mail: ainulhaezah@yahoo.com Increasing amount of polymeric waste material generated from paint industries has becomes major concern to the world. Gross volumes of untreated effluents caused by this waste released to the drainages without prior sufficient treatment would be harmful to the environment. This paper is focused on the utilization of waste latex paint effluent of Vinyl Acetate from paint factory as polymeric admixtures to the Portland cement mortar. The percentages of waste latex paint added were 1%, 2%, 3%, 5% and 10% by weight of cement. The chemical properties of specimens were analysed using X-Ray Fluorescence and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy methods. The morphological structure of the specimens was analysed using scanning electron microscopic technique. The mortar specimens were tested for workability, compressive strength and flexural strength test. Except for the control; all samples were cured at 2, 7, 28 and 60 days following Japanese Industrial Standard for short term period. The results showed that modified mortar containing 5% waste latex paint effluent gave better compressive strength than the control samples. The flexural strength also gives significant strength values from the optimization of 3 % among the samples. Therefore, utilization of this waste latex paint effluent would not only minimize impact to the environment but also provide or improve some good potential use of polymeric waste as polymer modified mortar. Keywords: Polymeric waste1, effluent2, workability3, strength4, mortar5, vinyl acetate6 1 Introduction There is increasing global concern on the environmental demands that waste should be properly managed in order to minimize and/or possibly eliminate the harmful effect towards the environment. Due to ever increasing quantities of the waste materials and industrial by-products generated, solid waste management is becoming primary concern in the world (Siddique and Singh 2011).