Technical and commercial analysis of recycled concrete aggregates from construction and demolition waste- coarse fraction
Student name: Ms Aanchal Susheen
Guide: Dr Lakshmi Raghupathy
Year of completion: 2018
Host Organisation: Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS)
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Gagan Nigam
Abstract: Construction sector in India is growing at a high pace owing to rapid urbanization, growth in infrastructure related sectors like highway and road construction, government initiatives like housing for all, and redevelopment projects. This growth in construction sector has raised the demand for coarse concrete aggregates while, also, creating huge quantities of Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste. To curb this dual menace, some of the increased demand for coarse aggregates can be met by recycling the C&D waste. This study aims to assess the technical and commercial aspects of recycling coarse aggregates (RCA) from C&D waste collected from Burari facility, under North Delhi Municipal Corporation. The study finds that most of the physical and chemical properties of the coarse aggregates are well under the standards prescribed by BIS, making it suitable for usage in certain concrete mixes. Even though there are certain properties like specific gravity and water absorption which vary vastly from Natural Aggregates (NA), they are within the prescribed levels. On the commercial side, the paper looks at the price of RCA and the cost associated with recycling. It also looks at the perception of stakeholders in the sector. Based on stakeholder interviews, it was found that the waste stream has large environmental and economic benefits but their uptake wasn’t much. Recommendations by the stakeholders have also been noted and presented in the paper.
Keywords: Construction and Demolition Waste, Recycled Concrete Aggregate, Natural Aggregate, coarse RCA.
