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Simultaneous Utilization of Fly Ash and Waste Plastics for Making Bricks and Paver Blocks
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Researchers developed paver blocks combining fly ash and waste plastics as a strategy for simultaneously diverting two industrial waste streams from landfill, assessing performance via hardness, wear, and compression testing. Safely immobilizing waste plastics in construction materials may prevent their fragmentation into microplastics and leaching of endocrine-disrupting chemicals like bisphenol A and phthalates into surrounding environments.
Fly ash is essentially the fine unburnt oxides from coal ash. The major sources for fly ash generation are coal combustion in power plants and coal-fired furnaces. The disposal of industrial and household wastes, including fly ash and waste plastics (shopping bags, PET bottles, plastic gadgets and plastic papers) has become a serious threat to environmental sustainability. Fly ash has a considerable long-lasting impact on the environment, human health, crop yield, land decay, surface and groundwater pollution, etc. On the other hand, many chemicals found in plastics are endocrine disruptors, which can cause an imbalance in hormones, reproductive issues, and even cancer. Also, microplastics can leach harmful chemicals such as bisphenol A and phthalates that often report to the human system. Both of these types of chemicals are known to interfere with hormones. Dioxin is an unwanted byproduct of the manufacture and burning of products that contain chlorine. The improper incineration of plastics made of polyvinyl chloride is a major source of dioxin generation. In the present work, an attempt has been made for the development of a suitable paver block by using fly ash and recycled waste plastics. Various types of waste plastics and fly ash of different size ranges were taken. The qualities of the paver blocks are characterized by hardness, wear test, cold crushing strength, and water retention. Paver blocks with optimized properties can be used for road making, roadside land filling, car parking slots, bathroom tiles, kitchens, domestic landscaping, etc. The present study shows an effective way to manage two common industrial and household wastes simultaneously with their effective utilization and value addition.
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