Processing of recycled waste PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastics bottle into for the lightweight and reinforcement bricks

Abstract

PET (polyethylene terephthalate) waste is a plastic bottle waste that difficult to recycle in large scale, so it was causing environmental pollution. In this research, PET waste used as a main material of bricks by using the mix design method. The mix design method used includes cutting of PET waste, melting of PET waste, mixing with other materials, and molding the materials. This research used four variations of PET waste added by cement and sand to find the ideal composition that mentioned by SNI (Indonesia National Standard). The ideal composition of brick is solid plastic: cement: sand volume ratio is 66:22:12. The result of this research showed that brick quality is ideal, which was characterized by FT-IR and SEM. This composition has 0% of water absorbency, the compressive strength is 75 Kg/cm2, water absorbency of SNI brick is under 20%, and the compressive strength is between 60-100 Kg/cm2.