Asian Research Journal of Current Science

Increasing waste from food packaging has become a major problem in terms of proper disposal in our contemporary environments hence an alternative use of the waste is sought. This study investigated the geotechnical properties of soil stabilized with food packaging waste for rural construction purposes. The soil before stabilization was characterized by moisture content ( 12.75%,) unit weight (15.3 KN/m³⁾, void ratio ( 0.7), particle density (1.628), bulk density(1.786), porosity, permeability, and specific gravity (0.4, 0.162 and 2.3) respectively. The grain size distribution classified the soil as well graded sand containing 0 % of clay, 4% of silt and 80% sand belonging to the group SW (Group≥15%). Five different mix ratio (10kg:0kg, 10kg:0.05kg, 10kg:0.1kg, 10kg:0.15kg and 10kg:0.20kg) of segregated and homogenized Plastic, Styrofoam and Paperboard were used to stabilized the soil. A total of 5 cubes were tested for the compressive strength after sun drying for 2 weeks. Unconfined compression test (UCC) was 0.056, coefficient of permeability K was 0.162, cohesion (C) was 10KN/m², the angle of internal friction, is 35^o. Liquid limit, plastic limit and plasticity index were 27.76, 19.8 and 7.96% respectively. The unit weight of the bricks were 5979, 5782, 5589, 5346 and 5073g for 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% mixed ratio of food packaging materials respectively. A decrease in unit weight and dry density of the brick was established with increasing % of mixed ration of soil to waste materials. The indices; crushing strength and compressive strength all showed a phenomenal increase with % of packaging material up to optimum replacement ratio of 100:10% and decline hence forth; this tells us that the maximum stability is obtained at that ration.