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Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 512 2597346; fax: +91 512 2597395.
E-mail addresses: akash rao@yahoo.com (A. Rao), knjha@civil.iitd.ernet.in (K.N. Jha), sud@iitk.ac.in
(S. Misra).
0921-3449/$ see front matter 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2006.05.010
72 A. Rao et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 50 (2007) 7181
1. Introduction
Preservation of the environment and conservation of the rapidly diminishing natural
resources should be the essence of sustainable development. Continuous industrial devel-
opment poses serious problems of construction and demolition waste disposal (Topcu and
Guncan, 1995). Whereas on the one hand, there is critical shortage of natural aggregates
(NA) for production of new concrete, on the other the enormous amounts of demolished
concrete produced from deteriorated and obsolete structures creates severe ecological and
environmental problem (Chandra, 2004, 2005). One of the ways to solve this problem is
to use this waste concrete as aggregates (Khalaf et al., 2004). Such recycled aggregate
could also be a reliable alternative to using natural aggregates in concrete construction. Also
there are instances of imposition of levy for disposal of such waste in landll, (Gilpin et al.,
2004).
Initially, recycling of demolition waste was rst carried out after the Second World War in
Germany (Khalaf et al., 2004). Since then, research work carried out in several countries has
demonstrated sufcient promise for developing use of construction waste as a constituent in
new concrete. Construction and demolition (C&D) waste could be broken concrete, bricks
from buildings, or broken pavement. Thus, Recycled Aggregate (RA) could come from the
demolition of buildings, bridge supports, airport runways, and concrete roadbeds. Concrete
made using such aggregates is referred to as recycled aggregate concrete (RAC).
An effort has been made in this paper to present a summary of the use of recycled aggre-
gates in the construction industry in different countries, and describe the salient properties
of RA and RAC, especially in relation to strength and durability. The paper also briey
discusses the barriers in promoting more widespread use of RAC.
2. Construction and demolition waste management
2.1. United States of America (Gilpin et al., 2004)
Of the approximately 2.7 billion metric tonnes of aggregate currently used in the USA,
the pavements account for 1015%, whereas other road construction and maintenance work
consumes another 2030%, and the bulk of about 6070% aggregates are used in structural
concrete. RA in the US is produced by natural aggregate producers, contractors and debris
recycling centers, which have a share of 50%, 36% and 14%, respectively. Incentives for
transportation of waste concrete and processed aggregates from production sites are given
to promote use of RA, though a large part of the production is suitable only as ll or
construction base.
2.2. Japan (Kawano, 2003)
Although Japan has a history of more than a quarter of a century of research on the
reuse of demolished concrete for concrete, yet relatively little concrete has been recycled
with the primary reason being non-acceptance of concrete not complying with JIS A-5308,
which lays down specications for ready mixed concrete. In 1991, the Japanese government
A. Rao et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 50 (2007) 7181 73
established the Recycling Law, which required relevant ministries to nominate materials
that they must control and to encourage the reuse and recycling of those materials under
their responsibility. The former Ministry of Construction (MOC) nominated demolished
concrete, soil, asphalt concrete, and wood as construction by-products. The MOCpresented
the Recycle 21