Walkway Block from Plastic Waste

Abstract

This research aimed to study and develope materials, building walkway blocks, from plastic waste to reduce plastic waste problem. The study, furthermore, compares surface temperature and humidity of material. This research focused on hand-made walkway blocks under a limitation of production machines. Walkway blocks were built to compare with ones on the market. According to previous studies, plastic waste was used as a composition in different ways. In this research, it was cut into small pieces and mixed with Portland cement, sand, and gravel for forming. The problems found in the process of forming were heterogeneous plastic waste and pieces of plastic waste floating on the top of walkway blocks. As a result, the way to conduct forming was changed to melting plastic with heat combined with sand. After the composition became homogenous, it was poured into a model for forming. This way of forming used 300 plastic bags, 150 bags per one block. This method was found that it could solve the above-mentioned problem. Next, the plastic bags were overlaid in the middle of the block covered around with concrete. One block used 75 plastic bags. According to this experiment, it could help solve the mentioned problem as well. In comparing temperature of the walkway blocks, the nighttime temperature was similar in all blocks while the daytime temperature was lowest in the blocks that had the plastic waste overlaid in the middle. The walkway block with plastic melted with heat and sand showed highest temperature in daytime. In comparing humidity, the block with plastic waste overlaid in the middle showed highest humidity in both daytime and nighttime while one with plastic melted with heat and sand showed lowest humidity in daytime.