Production and Testing of Mechanical Property of Roofing Sheet and Paving Block from Plastic Waste, Sawdust and Fine Sand

Abstract

This study is aimed at producing roofing sheets using local waste materials High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) and Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) plastic waste, sawdust and sand). The study was carried out basically for the sustainable use of raw materials in finding a good substitute, which have good tensile strength, and poor heat conductivity thereby reusing waste materials to reproduce new and useful roofing sheets. Laboratory experimental procedure was used for the production of the composite roofing sheet. The result shows that zero percent water absorption was obtained for the roofing sheet. Universal material testing machine was used to test for the compressive strength which gave a range of (6.6 – 144.7) KN/m². The materials showed good potential as a source of roofing sheet, when compared to the industrially made asbestos roofing sheets, with compressive strength ranging between (2.2 – 2.7) KN/m². The strength of the produced composite roofing sheet was found to be between 3 to 20 times higher than the commercial asbestos roofing sheet. However, the paving blocks result showed percentage water absorption of 4.2 percent after immersion into water for twenty-four hours. Universal material testing machine was used to test for the compressive strength, which gave a range of (5.4 – 65.2) KN/m² when this result is compared with concrete pavement compressive strength as reported by other workers of (0.048 – 3.56) KN/m² the strength of the produced composite paving blocks is 20 to 100 times higher in strength than the concrete paving blocks.