Plastic waste management in construction: technological and institutional issues

Abstract

The main objective of a solid waste management system is to effectively safeguard the public health, safety, and welfare. The various options involved in a waste management process are landfilling, incineration, and recycling wastes into useful products. Plastics recycling, in particular, would not be successful unless the proper infrastructure to collect the waste is being set, the technology to economically reprocess the waste into new products is available, and the establishment of markets for the cost-effective use of recycled products are developed. The development of new construction materials using recycled plastics is important to both the construction and the plastics recycling industries. Extensive research investigated the use of resins based on recycled poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) plastic waste for the production of a high performance composite material, namely polyester concrete (PC). Resins using recycled PET offer the possibility of a lower source cost of materials for forming good quality PC. PC products also allow the long-term disposal of PET waste, an important advantage in recycling applications. © 1995.