Soil improvement using waste materials: A review

Abstract

With the industrialization, industrial by-products are produced in large quantities and creates nuisance to natural habitats. The disposal of these wastes like fly ash, marble powder, construction and demolition (C&D) waste, brick powder, agricultural wastes etc. has become the potential threat to the ecosystem and need some real solutions. The direct disposal of such wastes into open land or water bodies causes circumambient pollution. One of the potential solutions is to utilize these wastes in the construction industry on large scale as subgrade rehab or additive to cement based materials. In the present study, the compaction and strength characteristics of stabilized soil was studied by using various waste materials i.e. lime, cement, plastic waste, industrial waste, fibre, mushroom waste, wet olive pomace etc. and reviewed. The addition of additives improved the engineering properties of soil significantly.