Recycling Plastic Waste in An Environmentally Friendly Way – Using it in Road Construction

Abstract

Full compliance with the technology of laying road surfaces does not always show high reliability. Low durability of roads is determined by insufficient quality indicators of the bitumen used. Therefore, the transition to the use of polymer-bitumen binders is a trend in the development of the road industry, which have higher quality characteristics. Most often, thermoplastic elastomers of the styrene-butadiene-styrene type are used to modify bitumen, which are characterized by a relatively high cost. This work experimentally demonstrates the effect of the combined use of plastic waste and ready-made polymer modifiers on the rheological properties and chemical bond of bitumen binders to reduce the cost of polymer-bitumen binders. In the work, secondary polyethylenes of different densities (LDPE and HDPE) were used in an amount of 1 to 2% together with ready-made polymer modifiers (SBS and Elvaloy). The physical-mechanical properties of the obtained bitumen binders were determined by standard methods according to ST RK. The results of the study show that with the increase of plastic waste, the plasticity range of bitumen in the presence of modifiers increases. This indicates that the finished polymers have a significant effect on improving the physical and mechanical properties of modified bitumen. New results were obtained on the effect of plastic waste on the quality of polymer-bitumen binder. According to the results of the work, it was found that the selected plastic waste is compatible with the ready-made polymer modifiers.