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FEASIBILITY STUDY OF REUSING GLASS AGGREGATE FROM CRUSHED CATHODE-RAY TUBES IN CONCRETE STRUCTURES

Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering

Our Research

Proposal:

To study the feasibility to reuse CRTs as fine aggregates &/or cement replacements in concrete.

Premise:

Concrete encapsulates CRT metals & reduces leachability to below regulatory limits @ POC

Benefits to the construction industry, to waste disposers & most importantly, the environment:

· Less hazardous wastes going to landfills

· Reduced use of raw materials for construction

Hypothesis:

CRT-Concrete, monolithic & crushed, can immobilize CRT contaminants to reduce their short & long term concentration at POC to acceptable levels.

Under worst-case conditions, technically & economically viable measures can be adopted to mitigate the impact of contaminants at POC.

Current Disposal Methods:

Landfills— Landfills today are being flooded with electronic equipment that is certainly hazardous to the environment. However, leaching, specially of lead, caused by the landfills condition (changes of pH level, chemical reactions, and rain), is phasing out landfills as a disposal method for lead-based glass. In fact, 12 states in the USA have landfill e-waste bans, including New York City.

Glass to Glass Recycling—This involves removing all the electronics and equipment that comes with the CRT’s and selling them back to their original equipment manufacturers (OEM). The glass is sorted and is also sent back to the OEM in Asia, where it will be smelted and reused for new television sets and computer monitors; a process that leads to enormous lead and air pollution problems.

Our Vision:

We want to create a new, and environmentally safe, alternative to CRT glass recycling.