Producing Eco-friendly Tiles from Recycled Plastic Generated from Municipal Solid Waste

Abstract

Plastic waste is considered one of the most problematic components of solid waste. Recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic was selected to produce plastic tiles as a binding material. In this study, to produce plastic tiles, mold with dimensions (15×15×2.5) cm was manufactured, and different mixture percentages of plastic, sand, and gravel were tested experimentally, focusing on flexural strength, chemical abrasion, absorption, and density. The results illustrated that the optimum mixture was (70, 30, 0) % of (plastic, sand, gravel), respectively, which achieved maximum flexural strength equal to 15.4 MPa. Also, chemical abrasion was less than ordinary cement tile standards, water absorption was zero, and the plastic tile density was 1075 kg/m³, which was classified as light tile compared with the ordinary cement tiles. The most significant conclusion is that the recycled plastic tile is a promising type since it has good engineering characteristics, and it could be a suitable eco-friendly product as well as an alternative to ordinary cement tile. Also, the research can be the starting point for using recycled plastic as binding material.