Abstract:
With an ever-increasing population of Islamic republic of Pakistan, and exponential
consumption of PET plastic materials filling our landfill sites and blocking canals, waterways,
and drainages, a viable and a reliable solution for reuse or recycling of PET must be proposed.
Burning and disposing in traditional ways produces harmful quantities of not only CO2 but
other by-product such as benzo pyrene and polyaromatic hydrocarbons PAHs which are both
carcinogens. Thus, our project consists of analyzing and testing the addition of PET waste in
Hot mix asphalt (HMA), to enhance the properties of asphaltic pavements while utilizing the
recycled PET and replacing a percentage of bitumen, saving costs, logistics and the
environment from further pollution and production of greenhouse gases while reducing waste
at landfill sites.
Asphaltic pavement in Pakistan suffers from failures and damage throughout the country,
some are less damaged while others can be a cause of serious injury or even death, resulting in
unsafe and inconvenient travel ways for the people. During Monsoons season, rain further
induces damage and causes potholes and cracks to widen in the roads, making them undriveable
and inflicts damage to vehicles and obstruction for the pedestrians, infusing frustration among
people.
As a result of our study, we determined that the addition of Polyethylene Terephthalate
(PET) into asphalt concrete has increased the TSR – Tensile Strength Ratio . The TSR value
increases from 0.674 in virgin asphalt cake to 0.758 in 8% PET based modified asphalt cake
which indicates an increase in the resistance to moisture susceptibility hence an improved
service life and pavement performance. Also, assuming a 10KM long flexible pavement, we
will be utilizing an approximately 85000kg weight of PET and this can significantly tackle the
issue of plastic pollution in terms of plastic bottles and PET based packaging material.
