Soil Stabilization Using Waste Plastic Materials

Expansive clay soils are the types of soils whose volume changes with the change in water content. They have a behavior of swelling and shrinking that is a serious hazard to structures built over them. Expansive soils are abundantly existing soil types in Ethiopia, particularly Addis Ababa. This paper shows the outcomes of an attempt to reinforce and stabilize expansive clay soil with plastic bottle strips. The plastic strips were prepared and added at three different mixing ratios (0.5%, 1% and 2%) by weight and in three different aspect ratios (5 mm × 7.5 mm, 10 mm × 15 mm, 15 mm × 20 mm). The experimental results showed that there was a significant improvement in shear strength parameters. The swelling and desiccation cracking behavior of the soil were also expressively reduced. There was a substantial reduction in the optimum moisture content and slight increment in maximum dry density. The optimum plastic size (aspect ratio) and plastic content that results in optimum result can be selected based on the importance of the selection parameter for a specified engineering work. Stabilizing expansive clay soils with waste plastic bottles simultaneously solves the challenges of improper plastic waste recycling that is currently a teething problem in most developing countries. The results obtained from this study favorably suggest that inclusion of this material in expansive soils would be effective for ground improvement in geotechnical engineering.