Reuse of municipal construction wastes as aggregates in concrete. Attaullah Shah1*.

, Hamid Mumaz2,
Ehsan.U.Qazi3,S.Naseer4 1. Corresponding author: Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad Pakistan 2.
UN HABITAT Islamabad 3. Capital Development Authority-Islamabad Pakistan 4. Undergraduate
student Swedish College of Engineering & Technology Wah Pakistan. *Corresponding author E-mail:
pdaiou@yahoo.com ABSTRACT The sustainable practices are based on the principles of resource
conservation, life cycle costing and human friendly design. The resource conservation focuses on
minimum use of material, energy and water resources, which in turn relies on reducing, reusing
and recycling (3R) of resources. Disposal of construction wastes pose major challenge to the
municipal administration in the developing countries of Asia Pacific region. The fast urbanization and
rapid construction in these regions are producing a huge burden on the natural resources. At the same
time old buildings and infrastructure are also enhanced, upgraded and modernized to accommodate the
new technological demands of growing populations. This has led to generation of substantial volume of
construction wastes in the developing countries of Asia. The transportation and disposal of construction
wastes require additional resources, which severely affect other projects of the municipal authorities.
There are many options for the disposal of construction wastes. One of the options to reduce the
burden of such construction wastes is to utilize such wastes as construction ingredients such as
aggregates and sands for concrete. The reuse of such aggregates in the concrete would reduce the
disposal costs of construction wastes at one hand and burden on natural resources in terms of
resource harvesting on the other hand. In this research work the construction solid wastes collected
from the municipal sources have been segregated, graded and utilized as aggregates in cement
concrete. Various mix design of concrete have been prepared and tested in the laboratory to check it
compressive strength and suitability for the construction purposes. The concrete cylinders and cubes
cast from the recycled aggregates were tested in the lab and failure patterns of these samples were
observed closely. The results have shown that there are ample opportunities of re-using the solid
wastes as aggregates and sands in the concrete and new constructions in Asia Pacific region.
Keywords sustainable practices, life cycle costing, construction wastes, urbanization.

INTRODUCTION Globally nearly 40% of the solid wastes originate from Construction and Demolition
Wastes (CDW). Construction and Demolition Wastes (CDW) constitute a major part of the municipal
wastes in the developing countries of Asian continent. According to US EPA (1998) definition, C&D are
waste material produced in the process of construction, renovation and demolition of structures.
The structures include residential, non residential buildings, roads & bridges of all types. The typical
components of C&D wastes are concrete, bricks, asphalt, gypsum wall boards, metal and woods. The
Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) produces 120 million tons of solid waste every year in which about
15% is construction wastes [1]. In Dubai Municipality alone C&D wastes accounts for 75% of the daily
slid wastes of 10,000 tons daily. Kartam et al. [2] discussed the current status of construction and
demolition waste disposal system in Kuwait and identified the potential problems to the environment,
people and economy. They investigated alternative solutions to manage and control this waste in an
economical, efficient and safe way. The need for green buildings in Bahrain was investigated by AlNaser
and Flanagan [3]. According to the authors, sustainable construction implementation is limited in the
country due to the lack of awareness of the public in sustainable technology, lack of markets
importing sustainable technologies, and client concerns about the profitability and pay-back period.
Kayali et al. [4] reviewed the available industrial waste products that can be used in making sustainable
concrete and their relevance to the Middle East, with particular attention to the GCC. In a paper by
Galbraith [5] on structural sustainability, the author outlined the role of structural design in
sustainable buildings and its implication within the Gulf region. Lately, Bahrain took the initiative to hold
a Green Building Forum in 2010 in Manama [6]. The forum’s objective was to discuss the challenges
facing the construction industry, with consideration of the environmental concerns, including
sustainable building materials, smart buildings, and other topics related to sustainable construction. In
Hong Kong, the annual C&D wastes to the tune of 14 million tons are produced every year and the
Govt. of Hong Kong has formulated two sets of specification for use of recycled aggregates [7].
Similarly about 200 million tons of rubble from the construction industry and building demolition
is produced annually in the European Union (EU). Approximately 40 million tons C&D wastes are
generated annually in Spain, the equivalent of 2 kg per inhabitant per day, a figure higher than that for
domestic waste. The pioneering countries in this area are Holland, where 95% of construction residues
are recycled, England, with 45%, and Belgium, with 87%, 17% of

which is used in concrete production. In Spain only 5% of the aggregates are recycled and used as road
base course. In 2007, 450 million tones of aggregates extracted from quarries and 65% used in concrete.
Awareness about CDW is increasing in the South Asian and Asia Pacific regions including countries like
Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. There is an increased commitment from
advanced countries like UK, Switzerland, Austria Netherland etc to utilize non renewable material to
avoid the construction wastes as these countries are faced with the space shortage for land filling [8].
UNEP IETC (2006) initiated Sustainable Building and Construction Initiatives (SBCI) to support the
sustainable environment friendly solutions for design and construction of built environment to
ultimately reduce the CDW and resources utilization. Vilas and Guilberto [9] has reported the
strategies adopted by the selected Asian Countries for disposal of CDW, which are re-arranged in Table
1. Below RE-USE AND RECYCLED CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION WASTE IN CONCRETE There
has been extensive research on exploring the uses of CDW for re-use and recycling in concrete. The
typical application of such material includes its use as recycled aggregates in concrete. Recycled
aggregates are obtained from processing of concrete previously used. Some of the commonly used
recycled aggregates include the following types: - Recycled Concrete Aggregate (RCA) - Recycled
Concrete and Masonry (RCM) - Reclaimed Aggregate (RA) - Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) -
Reclaimed Asphalt Aggregate (RAA) - Glass Cullet - Scrap Tires - Used Foundry Sand American Concrete
Institute (ACI) has focused on reuse of hardened concrete. The Recycled Concrete Aggregates (RCA)
contain crushed sound and clean concrete by 95% of the total weight of concrete and contamination of
1% or less. The brick contents in RCA have to be limited to 0.5% of the total weight of concrete. The use
of RCA has been mainly recommended for footpaths, kerbs,

sideways, gutter etc. To limited extent RCA are used for structural members but here the RCA must be
impervious and sound. RCA are commercially available in many developed countries. The Recycled
Concrete and Masonry aggregates ( RCM) must have not more than 30% of the crushed bricks. RCM are
used in road sub bases and base courses. In some parts of the world RCM are commercially available.
The Reclaimed Aggregates (RA) are separated from cement slurry of the refused concrete from batching
plants etc and can be used effectively for developing the structural and non structural concrete provided
that the aggregates are separated carefully. Reclaimed Asphalt Pavements (RAP) are obtained from old
pavements and are widely used in the new asphalt concrete pavements. Sometimes RCA and PAP are
blended to make aggregates for flexible pavements. The use of recycled aggregates from CDW is
becoming a popular option in many developing countries of Asia, mainly due to the initiatives of
the respective Governments. In Kuwait, Al-Mutairi and Haque [10] used old demolished concrete to
replace 50 and 100% of the coarse aggregate and seawater to replace 25, 50 and 100% of the tap water
in a standard concrete mix having moderate target strength. The recycled concrete was cured in
seawater for a period of 28 days. The results indicated that even with 100% usage of recycled
concrete aggregate, design strength of 35 MPa was attainable. Highest concrete strength was obtained
when the mixing water consisted of a blend of 25% seawater and 75% tap water. Al-Harthy et al. [11]
conducted laboratory tests to examine the strength and durability of recycled aggregate concrete. The
results showed that concrete strength is enhanced with the replacement of normal aggregates by
recycled aggregate content of up to 30%, thereafter the strength decreases with further increase in
recycled aggregate. Fong et al [12] applied steam curing techniques to concrete made with recycled
aggregates and showed that preliminary results indicate that compared with concretes cured under
normal water temperature, steam curing increased the early strengths but reduced the long-term
strengths for all normal and recycled aggregate concretes. Chen et al [13] used the construction
rubbles including bricks and tiles as replacement to aggregates in various proportions from 0% to
67%. They also proposed a flowchart for the preparation and processing of recycled aggregates. Poon et
al [14] used the recycled aggregates in the construction of concrete blocks and bricks. They used the
RCA as % replacement of the natural aggregates up to 100% and their results showed that the
replacement of coarse and fine natural aggregates by recycled aggregates at the levels of 25 and 50%
had little effect on the compressive strength of the bricks and blocks, but higher levels of replacement
reduced the compressive strength. They also used Fly Ash as additive to increase the strength of
concrete.

SOLID WASTE MANGEMENT IN ISLAMABD PAKISTAN. Islamabad the Capital of Pakistan is

administratively controlled by Capital Development Authority (CDA). The collection and disposal of
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is administered by CDA. Previously the MSW was collected and
disposed off in Sector H-11 in open dumping and sometimes burning was also exercised. On account of
habitation in the vicinity and objections of environmentalists, the site was closed and shifted to I-14
sector. The area earmarked for the purpose is about 500,000 square feet. Since Year-2003, the MSW
were being dumped in the location, the average depth being about 15 feet. Up till now as reported by
CDA, about 1.4 million tons of MSW have been disposed off in the location. The MSW collected from the
city is transported to green belt of Sector-I-14; previously was dumped in an unsanitary way, but
presently, a sort of sanitary land fill is practiced. Recently, under an arrangement, local cement
factory (Fauji Foundation) after screening is lifting MSW for use as fuel in its cement plant [15]. The CDA
on the basis of daily collection and transportation to the site of dumping has assessed quantity of MSW
as 550-600 tons per day, out of this generated MSW, about 500 tons are collected and disposed off. The
collection efficiency as such is about 83%. The sector-wise generation of MSW is given in Table 1 Table
Sector-wise MSW generation of Islamabad Pakistan. Source: Waste Amount Survey in Islamabad,
JICA/EPA The survey of MSW generation was carried out to assess the daily per capita generation of
MSW. The results of various studies are given in Table 2