Utilization of Waste Plastic Fibre on Sludge Added Clay Brick

Abstract

In many countries, water treatment plant sludge is a serious problem due to its high treatment cost and the risk to environment and human health. The water treatment plant sludge is extremely close to brick clay in chemical composition, so it could be a potential substitute for brick clay. This study investigates the complete substitution of brick clay by water treatment plant sludge incorporated with plastic fibre as reinforcement. In this study, different series of sludge and clay proportioning ratios were tried which involves addition of sludge with ratios between 10 to 40% by weight. Huge quantity of waste plastic is one of the major environmental concerns. This paper also studies the effect of embedded fibre from plastic waste and the performance of clay block. Plastic fibre in chopped form from carry bags were added as reinforcement. This project shows that replacement of clay with this dry sludge material reduce the weight of brick. From the observations of failure pattern it can be concluded that benefits of fiber reinforcement include both improved ductility in comparison with raw blocks and inhibition of large crack propagation after initial formation. This investigation could solve disposal problem to some extent and can also produce light weight and economic building material.