IJSR - INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 161 Volume : 3 | Issue : 4 | April 2014 • ISSN No 2277 - 8179 Research Paper Engineering Vatsal Patel Associate Professor, A D Patel Institute of Technology, New Vallabh Vidyanagar Snehal Popli Associate Professor, G H Patel College of Engineering and Technology Drashti Bhatt Assistant Professor, A D Patel Institute of Technology, New Vallabh Vidyanagar Utilization of Plastic Waste in Construction of Roads KEYWORDS : Waste Quantity, Powder- ing, Environmental Pollution, Bitumi- nous mixes ABSTRACT The plastic waste quantity in municipal solid waste is increasing due to increase in population and changes in life style. Thus disposal of waste plastic is a hazardous and become a serious problem globally due to their non-biodegradability. Plastic roads are found to perform better than ordinary roads and therefore use of plastic road construction has gained importance these days. Disposal of waste plastic bags has become a serious problem and waste plastics are burnt for disposal which causes environmental pollution. Utilization of waste plastic bituminous mixes has proved that these enhance the properties of mix in addition to solving disposal problems. Waste like plastic bottles, polymers, cups, etc. can be re-used by powdering or blending it with crusher and can be coated over aggregate and bitumen by any heating process. This paper describes the various aspects of utilization of plastic waste in construction of roads. INTRODUCTION Most of the paved roads in our country have granular sub base and base; bituminous base and wearing courses. The past prac- tice of providing thin wearing coat of 20 mm premix carpet with seal coat was to allow deformation in granular layers to take place once road is opened to traffic. After the layers get com- pacted then thick bituminous wearing course was provided. Plastic is a very versatile material. Due to the industrial revolu- tion, and its large scale production plastic seemed to be a cheap- er and effective raw material. Today, every vital sector of the economy starting from agriculture to packaging, automobile, electronics, electrical, building construction, communication sectors has been virtually revolutionized by the applications of plastics. Plastic is a non-biodegradable material and research- ers found that the material can remain on earth for 4500 years without degradation. Several studies have proven the health hazard caused by improper disposal of plastic waste [1]. Plas- tics, a versatile material and a friend to common man become a problem to the environment after its use. Disposal of a variety of plastic & rubber wastes in an eco-friendly way is the thrust area of today’s research [2]. Looking forward the scenario of present life style a complete ban on the use of waste plastic cannot be put, although the waste plastic taking the face of a devil for the present and the future generation. But the use of waste plastics in road construction is gaining importance these days because plastic roads perform better than ordinary ones and the plastic waste considered to be a pollution menace, can find its use. The use of waste plastic for coating the aggregates of the bituminous mix found to improve its performance characteristics. Recycled polythene carry bags were shredded into small sizes and is coated on aggregates of the mix at specified temperature. Bitu- minous mixes were prepared with 60/70 bitumen and plastic coated aggregates/ordinary aggregates with cement as a filler material [3]. The uses of plastic waste helps in substantially improving the abrasion and slip resistance of flexible pavement and also allows to obtain values of splitting tensile strength sat- isfied the specified limits while plastic waste content is beyond 30% by weight of mix. If the consistent mixing time and mix- ing temperature are not provided for bitumen– modifier mix, modified bitumen cannot exhibit good performance in situ, thus premature failures will occur. Therefore, there are certain rec- ommended mixing time, mixing temperature and modifier con- tent for all the polymers with a trademark. This all should be taken in mind while mixing and lying of roads is to be done us- ing plastic waste. Plastic road would be a boon for India. In hot and extremely humid climate durable and eco-friendly plastic roads are of greatest advantages. This will also help in reliving the earth from all type of plastic waste [4]. GENERATION OF PLASTIC WASTE IN INDIA A material that contains one or more organic polymers of large molecular weight, solid in its finish state and at some state while manufacturing or processing into finished articles, can be shaped by its flow is termed as plastics. The plastic constitutes two major category of plastics; (i) Thermoplastics and (ii) Ther- moset plastics. The thermoplastics, constitutes 80% and ther- moset constitutes approximately 20% of total postconsumer plastics waste generated. Table 1 shows the consumption of plastic waste in india. TABLE – 1 CONSUMPTION OF PLASTIC WASTE Sr. No. Year Consumption(Tones) 1 1996 61000 2 2001 400000 3 2006 700000 4 2011 1350000 5 2013 1740000 Figure 1 shows the different sources of plastic waste in india. Figure 2 shows different types of plastics with their character- istics and uses in India. Figure 1waste plastic sources Figure 2 Different types of plastics with characteristics and uses