Performance of recycled plastic waste modified asphalt binder in Saudi Arabia

The amount of solid plastic waste generated from material packages like plastic bottle and similar utilities within the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has skyrocketed. This is as a result of the increased level of industrial packaging due to rapid industrialisation and fast urbanisation in the country. The associated cost of managing these solid wastes has also multiplied as the task become difficult and enormous. The effect of polypropylene, high- and low-density polyethylene (PP, HDPE and LDPE)-recycled plastic wastes (RPW) on the viscoelastic performance of the local asphalt binder has been investigated. The recycled plastics were obtained by shredding and grounding the RPW to a desirable size for easier blending with the asphalt binder. All the RPWs result in an improved rutting performance. The RPW-modified asphalts upper PG limit increase by at least one level for each 2% increase in the RPW content, in most cases. An increase of 55, 19 and 9% in resilient modulus (M-R) was observed for PP-, HDPE- and LDPE-produced asphalt concrete (AC), respectively. Correlation between the M-R of the AC and non-recoverable creep compliance (J(nr)) of the asphalt binder was established. The obtained viscoelastic properties of the RPW-modified binder was utilised to model a typical pavement section using AASHTO mechanistic empirical pavement design guide (ME-PDG) software. The predicted distresses of the modelled pavement shows significant rutting and fatigue performance improvement for pavement produced with the RPW. Elastomeric type of polymer is required to supplement these RPW to enable them meet the AASHTO TP 70 elastic recovery requirement.