Ecological improvement based on the employment of polyethylene terephthalate plastic to improve the aggregate properties of asphalt mixtures.

In many civil engineering applications such as asphalt pavement, waste plastic resources can now be used as supplementation to achieve improved economy and to reduce environmental impact. In this investigation, the effect of adding a softened waste plastic (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) coating to the properties of coarse aggregate in a hot asphalt mixture were inspected. The adopted percentage of waste plastic chips varied from 0.6 to 1.8 % by weight of the coarse aggregate, and the Los Angeles abrasion value and water absorption percentages were then calculated for each mix. The density of the waste plastic-coated aggregate was also measured. The findings indicated that the aggregate properties were greatly improved by the addition of a waste plastic coating, with enhancement of several key properties increasing as the fraction of waste plastic increased. This may offer a practical use for waste plastic, reducing landfill, while supporting the development of improved hot mix asphalt for use in flexible pavement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]