review · Polymers
Managing large volumes of plastic waste requires productive valorisation strategies, and the resource-intensive construction sector offers a practical avenue for absorbing recycled materials. Plastic waste can replace non-renewable natural resources as a filler in composite materials, which enhances qualities such as thermal and sound insulation. Specifically, thermoset plastic waste provides rigidity, chemical resistance, heat tolerance, strength, and durability, making it appropriate for non-structural construction uses. In addition, melted thermoplastic waste can serve as a binder mixed with inorganic materials to form construction composites. This approach enhances ductility, lowers water absorption, and raises overall durability. To resolve bonding challenges often seen with conventional manufacturing techniques, the hot-pressing method proves more effective, facilitating better integration of recycled plastics into building composites.
Plastic waste creates severe environmental pressures, while construction demands immense amounts of energy and natural resources. Diverting waste plastics into building components helps mitigate disposal challenges and reduces reliance on finite raw materials. Understanding how distinct plastics perform as fillers or binders enables the design of building composites with improved acoustic, thermal, and moisture-resistant properties.
These recycling methods could enable building material manufacturers and construction firms to produce insulation and non-structural components using plastic waste fillers or thermoplastic binders. The abstract reviews existing experimental strategies and processing approaches, notably hot pressing, indicating applied research that has been tested in composite formulations, though it does not specify production scale or commercial deployment status.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
The world is facing the issue of managing a huge amount of plastic waste. To prevent uncontrolled and unproductive disposal, various valorization strategies have been developed. Recycling plastic waste into valuable composites for construction offers a promising pathway toward sustainable waste management. Given that the construction industry is a major consumer of energy and natural resources, it presents a key opportunity for integrating recycled materials. This review examines diverse strategies and applications for plastic waste recycling, with a particular focus on sustainable construction solutions, while also evaluating the advantages and limitations of this approach. Within this context, recycled plastic waste can be used as a filler to replace non-renewable natural resources. Studies have shown that incorporating plastic waste as a filler improves diverse properties of composites, including thermal and sound insulation. In particular, thermoset plastic waste exhibits desirable characteristics such as rigidity, heat and chemical resistance, strength and durability, making it suitable as a filler for non-structural applications. Alternatively, melting recycled plastic waste can produce binder materials that combine with other inorganic materials to form building and construction composites. Using melted thermoplastic waste as a binder enhances ductility, reduces water absorption, and improves overall durability. Additionally, the hot-pressing technique has been shown to be more effective in addressing poor bonding issues commonly encountered with conventional methods.
This page summarises published work. The authoritative version sits with the publisher.
DOI: 10.3390/polym17070881
Is something wrong with this record? Report it or request removal.
Discussion
Have you built on this work, tried to replicate it, or seen it applied in practice? Share what you know. Verified researchers and MARATTO™ domain experts can open a discussion, and any member can reply. Contributions are reviewed before they appear.
No discussion yet. Open the first thread.
New to MARATTO™? Create a free account.
