Papercrete brick as an alternate building material to control Environmental Pollution

Abstract

Utilization of concrete in the construction industry is increasing day by day. The increasing demand for concrete in the future is the major issue, for which an alternate option is to find out at a reduced or no additional cost and to reduce the environmental impact due to increase of cement industries that are important ingredient to economic development. It turns out urgent to find out alternate for the partial replacement of concrete and cement, as natural sources of aggregates are becoming exhausted. As large quantity of paper waste is generated from different countries all over the world which causes serious environmental problems, So in this present study abandoned paper waste was used as a partial replacement material in concrete,. Study indicates that 80% of the construction cost of a building was contributed by building material and still millions of people in developing countries like India are not able to afford the cost of construction of house. This study is based on potential use of light weight composite brick as a building material and potential use of paper waste for producing at low-cost. Experimental investigation was carried out to analyse optimization of mix for papercrete bricks depending upon the water absorption, compressive strength and unit weight. Papercrete bricks were prepared out of waste paper, and quarry dust with partial replacement of cement by another industrial by-product Fly Ash in varying proportions of 25%, 40% and 55%. The properties like mechanical strength, standard quality comparisons with the conventional bricks through standard tests like hardness, soundness, fire resistance and Cost-Benefit Analysis were performed and studied. The specimens of dimension 230mm x 110mm x 80mm were subjected to 7 Days and 28 days air curing and sun drying before tests were performed on them. Based on the study it was found that for non-load bearing walls papercrete bricks are best suited.