Using plastic waste in construction: Recycled medical equipment to improve concret

Abstract

Urbanization and the evolution of people's lifestyles have a significant impact on the quantity of waste that is generated and dumped each year. In addition, due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of masks has increased significantly, and the amount of plastic waste generation worldwide has doubled. The main component of Protective Suits (PS) and Disposable medical face masks (DMFM) is polypropylene plastic, which will end up contaminating the natural environment given the poor management of this kind of waste and will not decompose for hundreds of years. Faced with both increasing amounts of generated plastic waste and the growing interest in sustainability, the construction sectors can take advantage of this situation using recycled plastic waste to improve concrete properties such as compressive and splitting tensile strength to reduce the negative impact of the generated plastic waste, while meeting future infrastructure demands. The purpose of this paper is to address the massive plastic waste that increased during the pandemic by analysing an alternative material for infrastructure buildings that incorporates this kind of waste.