Published Paper Details:

India is one of the major countries in the world having more than 4.7 million km road network and construction is still taking place. Management of Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) and plastics are foremost concern during the development of infrastructures including roads and highways. Moreover, the use of Recycled Asphalt Pavement (RAP) may be effective for the development of roads and this will help to manage the bituminous waste which is included in the hazardous category. This work mainly focused on the management of CDW generated in road and highway construction and the use of RAP in the selected road projects undergoing in the state of Kerala. Moreover, the reuse of plastic waste for flexible pavement was also checked in the selected project roads. After the 2018 flood, the state of Kerala initiated the rehabilitation and upgradation of Major District Roads (MDR) in various districts with the financial help of KfW Development Bank under the scheme Rebuild Kerala Initiative (RKI). As part of this, the state identified the damaged roads and developed the DPR under the supervision of the Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP). While starting the project, the management of CDW become a major concern and the contractors dumped this waste into the lease areas. The hazardous bituminous wastes were leached into nearby areas and led to polluting various environmental matrices. It is expected an increase of 2.2 billion tonnes of solid waste generation by 2025 (Hoorweg and Bhada-tata, 2012).Other than environmental concerns, inflation in the cost of virgin materials and decreasing natural materials push the engineers to find alternatives from the CDW generated in the project location. The current practice of the case area's CDW includes onsite sorting, reuse, recycling, Just-In-time delivery (JIT), using prefabricated construction materials and color-coded waste containers. However, scarified bitumen is found to be difficult to be disposed of or for landfilled purposes. Plastic waste is of high environmental concern due to its worldwide distribution and impact on land and aquatic environments (Sruthy and Ramasamy, 2016). For the management of plastic waste, the polymer bitumen blend is a better binder compared to plain bitumen (Vasudevan, 2007). The rehabilitation and upgradation of MDR in Alappuzha and Trivandrum districts under RKI are processing and these two projects were selected for the project work. The study aims the re use scarified bituminous material in Highway construction in Kerala and thereby reduce the impact on the Environment. As we know, Dense Graded Bituminous Macadam (DGBM) is a dense graded premix bituminous mix well compacted to form a high-quality pavement sub-surface course. The Dense Bituminous macadam consists of a proportioned mixture of coarse aggregate, fine aggregate, Bitumen VG-30 and recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) material to meet the requirements of mix gradation, Stability, Flow Density and voids analysis. The laboratory determination of the "Job Mix Formula" for Dense Graded Bituminous Macadam will be carried out for the source of bitumen from Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), aggregate from the local quarry having environmental clearance from the concerned authority, and RAP Material (Scarified Bituminous) of existing road from RKI project at Alappuzha and Trivandrum districts of Kerala RAP Material will be tested for physical properties based on the Trial and Error Method as specified in Section 519 of the MORTH Specification. Further, a road stretch under reconstruction will be selected and a RAP mix design will be implemented in the Proportion of 80%-20% (80% Conventional Bitumen and 20% RAP). Even though IRC had already published guidelines (IRC SP 19: 2013) for the use of waste plastic in hot bituminous mixes, the technology continuous to receive lukewarm responses from the designers/ contractors. With rapid urbanization a large quantum of waste plastic is been generated and disposal of waste is a serious problem. Studies have revealed that waste plastics have great potential for use in bituminous construction as its addition in small doses, about 5-10%, by weight of bitumen helps in substantially improving the Marshall stability, strength, fatigue life and other desirable properties of bituminous mix, leading to improved longevity and pavement performance. The use of waste plastic thus contributes to construction of green roads. The study aims at the use of waste plastic in hot bituminous concrete, thereby trying to re-use the generated waste from Construction in the development of Highways in Kerala. To bring change and improvement in the current practices of the case area's CDWM, there should be an education, workshop, and training regarding the concept of CDWM, waste management strategies and benefits of BIM in managing CDW to construction project participants. This, in turn, can help the case study's firm and the general public to attain environmental, social and economic benefits from CDWM.