Plastic As Soil Stabilizer

Author Name : Prof. R. H. Deshmukh, Aishwarya Gade, Khush Bansode

ABSTRACT

There is a fast increase in the generation of waste plastics all around the world attributable to economic processes, dynamic Consumption, and Production Patterns. The world’s annual consumption of plastic materials has inflated from around five million tons in the Nineteen Fifties to nearly a hundred million tons. Thus, presently twenty times a lot plastic is produced as compared to fifty years ago. Soil stabilization alters the physical properties of soil to improve its strength, durability, or other qualities to meet the engineering necessities. It will be achieved by adding appropriate admixtures like cement, lime, and waste material like fly ash, minerals, etc, or by alternative appropriate stabilization technique. The value of adding these additives has tremendously increased in the past few years; therefore there is a need for the event of other forms of soil additives like plastic, bamboo, etc, and these new techniques of soil stabilization mistreatment of plastic waste which may be effectively used to solve the challenges of society, thereby reducing the number of waste plastic material. The use of polyethylene luggage, bottles, and other plastic product is exponentially increasing year by year due to that we tend to face varied environmental issues. Therefore the correct manner of disposing of plastic waste without inflicting any ecological hazard has become a real challenge these days. A review paper presents the data massed on the utilization of plastic waste in bettering the engineering characteristics of soil through experimental investigations. From literature accumulated, it is discovered that sundry engineering properties of soil are amended with the incorporation of plastic waste in the soil in sundry percentage.  Soil stabilization is a process that improves the physical properties of soil, such as increasing shear strength, bearing capacity, etc. which can be done by use of controlled compaction or addition of suitable admixtures like cement, lime, and waste materials like fly ash, phosphor gypsum, etc. This new technique of soil stabilization can be effectively used to meet the challenges of society, reduce the quantities of waste, producing useful material from non-useful waste materials. Plastic such as shopping bags is used as a reinforcement to perform the CBR studies while mixing with soil for improving the engineering performance of subgrade soil. Plastic strips obtained from waste plastic were mixed randomly with the soil. A series of California Bearing Ratio (CBR) tests were carried out on randomly reinforced soil by varying percentages of plastic strips with different lengths and proportions. Results of CBR tests demonstrated that the inclusion of waste plastic strips in soil with appropriate amounts improved the strength and deformation behavior of subgrade soils substantially.

Keywords: CBR, Plastic bottle, Plastic bag, Soil Stabilization.