Characteristics of earth bricks produced with partial replacement of laterite with plastic, ceramic tiles and glass for sustainable management of the environment

Abstract

Solid waste material like glass, ceramic tiles and plastic form a major component of solid waste in Nigeria and other countries. The 3R-Method – Reuse, Recycle and Redo can be adopted after its usage. A large percentage is disposed to the land fill which constitutes environmental pollution.

To safeguard the environment, many efforts are being made for the recycling of different types of solid waste with the aim of utilizing them as construction materials. This research discusses the characteristic of earth brick produced with 100% laterite and produced by partially replacing laterite at 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% separately with plastic, crushed ceramic tiles and crushed glass materials for sustainable management of the environmental waste.

A total of 180 earth brick of size 115mm x 215mm x 115mm were produced.

The compressive strength of earth brick with 100% laterite at 28 days was 1.89 N/mm², which was not far from the compressive strength with 5 % replacement of crushed glass and ceramics having values of 1.86 N/mm² and 1.75 N/mm² respectively and that with plastic replacement at 5% which had a maximum value of 0.95 N/mm² after 28 days.

From the result It was deduced that there was a reduction in compressive strength of plastic, crushed glass and ceramic as their percentage increased, but for plastic as the number of days for air curing increased the compressive strength reduced for all percentage replacement unlike for crushed glass and ceramics where as the number of days for air curing increased from 7 days to 28 days the compressive strength also increased.

It can be recommended that bricks with up to 5% replacement of glass and ceramic which had compressive strength of approximate 2.0 N/mm² can be used for earth brick industry with a view to reduce the environmental waste.