Received: 6 October 2020 Revised: 22 January 2021 Accepted: 27 January 2021

DOI: 10.1002/pls2.10034

REVIEW

Waste plastics in asphalt concrete: A review

Brian P. Grady

School of Chemical, Biological, and

Materials Engineering, University of
Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA
Correspondence
Brian P. Grady, School of Chemical,
Biological, and Materials Engineering,
University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK,
USA.
Email: bpgrady@ou.edu
Abstract
Among possible applications for post-consumer waste plastics, one criterion is
that the application should be able to use very large amounts of material
because the amount of plastic waste is so large. Another key issue is econom-
ics; very little cost should be involved in preparing waste plastics for a specific
application. One of the few applications for post-consumer waste plastics that
could possibly meet both requirements is filler in asphalt concrete. Specifically,
if waste plastics in asphalt concrete were  10 wt%, then this application alone
could use all plastic waste currently being produced in the world. This review
examines the progress that has been made to incorporate waste plastics into
asphalt concrete and identifies key issues preventing this technology from
being applied commercially.

KEYWORDS
asphalt, bitumen, plastic, recycle

1 | INTRODUCTION of plastic in those new roads would be 10 wt%.[7] Reuse

A recent article by Geyer[1] painted a stark picture of the
world's use of plastic and the buildup of waste plastic. As
shown in Figure 1, every year more than 100 pounds of
polymers are produced for every man, woman and child
on the planet. Recycling rates in the United States are low;
only about 9% of post-consumer plastic waste is
recycled.[4] In European countries that have banned land-
filling, the average recycling rate is 35%; the country
with the highest recycling rate in the world (Norway) still
only recycles about 45% of its plastic waste.[5] The vast
majority of the remainder of the waste plastic in all of
these countries is either burned for fuel value or buried in
the ground.
As is obvious by examining the top graph in Figure 1,
very few possible reuses of plastics could possibly absorb
the volumes required. In the United States, if all plastic dis-
posed of in the United States (about 230 lbs/person/year)[6]
were put in newly constructed asphalt roads, the amount
of waste plastics in asphalt road construction is one of the
very few applications, because of the large volumes of both
plastics and roads produced, that could effectively elimi-
nate landfilling or burning of plastic. The purpose of this
review article is to highlight studies that have described
incorporation of waste plastics into asphalt roads.
Asphalt does not have a precise definition. In North
America, the terms asphalt and bitumen refer to a highly
viscous and sticky form of petroleum. Asphalt refers to
the bottoms from a distillation column of crude oil, while
bitumen refers to the form that occurs naturally without
any processing. Outside of North America, the term bitu-
men refers to a highly viscous and sticky form of petro-
leum, no matter the source, while the terms asphalt
refers to the product after mixing bitumen with aggre-
gate, for example, stone and sand.
The formation of bitumen (using the term according
to the North American convention) requires temperature
and pressure and hence forms far beneath the earth's

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
© 2021 The Authors. SPE Polymers published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. on behalf of Society of Plastics Engineers.

SPE Polymers. 2021;1–15. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pls2 1

2 GRADY
FIGURE 1 World plastics production[2,3]
surface. Tar has similar properties, but tar formation
occurs either chemically in a reactor or column or occurs
naturally near the Earth's surface. Tar is not used exten-
sively in road construction primarily because of its
greater changes in viscosity with temperature. Even more
confusing, in North America, the process to make roads
from bitumen is very different than what is used for
asphalt. Bitumen roads are made by spraying bitumen,
then aggregate, then bitumen again. Asphalt roads are
made by mixing the asphalt with the aggregate at ele-
vated temperatures, and then pouring out this composite
onto the surface. Only asphalt roads are of interest in this
paper.
If asphalt is the viscous form of petroleum, then the
term “asphalt roads” is imprecise because road material
is mostly aggregate, with a small amount of asphalt. For
this review, the term asphalt binder (or just binder) will
be used when referring to the liquid and asphalt concrete
(or just concrete) the mixture of binder with aggregate.
During the course of collecting information for this
review, the author found that if the term “asphalt” or
“bitumen” is used alone in the title or abstract without
the terms binder or concrete, then the paper must be read
to determine whether the material studies was with or
without the aggregate.
This review is not the first review of this topic.[8–14]
This review differs in that the review is written for a read-
ership unfamiliar with asphalt and hence particular
attention is spent defining terms for tests, and, as much
as possible, confusing nomenclature is avoided. Further,
the clear division between plastics that melt and those
that do not is unique to this review versus other reviews.
Finally, previous reviews are organized among different
plastic types while this review is organized around differ-
ent properties of asphalt concrete and the effect that
waste plastics has on those properties.
This review is not comprehensive in two senses. First,
the focus is only on certain measurements. The measure-
ments were chosen because they are most directly related
to performance in roads. Second, not all papers are
referenced here; the author believes he looked at most if
not all papers that measured the quantities of interest,
but instead decided to choose representative results
rather than report all results.
1.1 | Asphalt concrete basics
Asphalt concrete is composed of binder and rocks at a
minimum. Typical weight fractions are approximately
95% aggregate and 5% binder; volume fractions are typi-
cally 88% and 12%, respectively. The minimum amount
of binder required to properly wet the aggregate is typi-
cally used; variations in binder amount occurs primarily
because aggregate can adsorb asphalt. Air also will be
incorporated into the mixture. Recycling is already very
common in this industry; reclaimed asphalt shingles
and/or reclaimed asphalt pavement may be in a formula-
tion as well. Because of variability in both binder and
aggregate, testing in laboratory finished formulations is
critical prior to application as a road. Major variables
include viscosity of the binder with temperature, wetting
of the binder to the rock, and surface area (particle size)
of the rock. Table 1 lists the typical tests done on asphalt
concrete; note that the exact procedures used vary sub-
stantially so only general guidelines are given. Of course,
tests are done on both aggregate and asphalt binder indi-
vidually, including size distribution for the former and
viscosity versus temperature for the latter to help deter-
mine concrete composition and mixing temperature,
respectively. These tests will be discussed as appropriate
later in the manuscript. Also, Table 1 is not comprehen-
sive although every test that is referred to in this paper
does appear in this table.
Asphalt binder is usually mixed with aggregate at a
facility far removed (miles to tens of miles) from the road
where the asphalt concrete is applied; the presumption is
that little to no cooling occurs during transport.
GRADY 3

TABLE 1 Tests for asphalt concrete depends primarily on the temperature at which the com-
paction is done. The asphalt concrete is then left to solid-
Performance
Test Description property ify and is considered complete and ready for use when
the temperature reaches ambient temperature.
Stiffness Modulus is measured Deformation due
The composition of a hot-mix asphalt concrete
in compression or in to
deflection instantaneous (HMA) is as described above. HMAs may also
load include small amounts of additives; most commonly
Indirect A cylindrical specimen Failure due to interfacial agents to reduce viscosity via reduction in
tensile is stood on edge and instantaneous particle-particle friction as well as improving wetting
strength broken and the force load between rock and asphalt. The temperature of mixing is
(ITS) required to break is 150–180 C while compaction typically occurs 40 C less
measured than application temperature. Over the last 20 years or
Tensile ITS done after Failure due to so, warm-mix asphalt concretes (WMAs) have been
strength exposure to water instantaneous gaining significantly in market share. Mixing tempera-
ratio (TSR) and/or freeze/thaw load after tures used are lower, typically from 110–150 C. Formula-
cycles. The tensile absorption of
tions are more complicated because additives are needed
strength ratio is the water
so that the viscosity is low enough to apply the asphalt
ratio of the value
from the exposed concrete. Typical additives include waxes and interfacial
sample to the value agents. WMA also refers to foams, which involve
from the injecting water to make steam which also lowers the
measurement on the viscosity. The driving force for WMA processes are
sample prior to environmental because lower temperatures mean less
exposure emissions of organic materials to the atmosphere as well
Rutting A wheel runs over a Deformation due as less energy consumption to heat the asphalt binder
sample many times to cyclic load and aggregate. In addition, worker safety is improved
and rut depth after a
because of the lower exposure to emissions during appli-
certain number of
cation. From a plastics recycling perspective, the temper-
cycles is measured
ature at which the asphalt is mixed is critical because
Fatigue Load varies Weakening of the
this temperature will determine whether a specific plastic
sinusoidally on a ability to
sample, typically in withstand
melts during mixing.
on a beam in deformation
compression, until after
some modulus drop application of a 1.2 | Plastic waste composition
is reached, typically cyclic load
a drop of 50% The most important thermoplastic polymers are low-
density polyethylene (LDPE), linear-low-density polyeth-
ylene (LLDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE),
Regarding waste plastic that is a liquid at mixing temper- polypropylene (PP), polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride
ature; the introduction of the plastic can be done by (PVC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyamide,
mixing with the binder (wet process) or the solid plastic polyurethane and acrylics (most commonly polymethyl
can be added with the aggregate (dry process). The for- methacrylate). Depending on the temperature at which
mer typically requires some process modification while asphalt is mixed and the composition of the polymer, the
the latter does not. Application has two steps, the first is polymer can become a high viscosity liquid or may
augering of the asphalt concrete onto the roadway at remain a solid. This difference is critically important in
some specified rate and the second is compaction, typi- studies of plastic waste in asphalt concrete for a variety of
cally with a steel roller, to remove trapped air from the reasons, including the importance of the polymer surface
asphalt concrete. The actual application temperature will and effect on binder viscosity. As can be concluded from
depend on the outside air temperature while, by chang- Figure 2, for an HMA about 70% of all plastic waste
ing the time between application and compaction, some would be a liquid, while for a WMA the percentage drops
control of compaction temperature is possible, although to 25%. Not surprisingly, 70% corresponds roughly to
typically compaction occurs immediately after applica- the fraction of papers that describe studies of plastics in
tion. The compaction step is extremely important for pro- asphalt concrete that involve plastics that melt during
ducing a long-lived asphalt concrete, which in turn mixing of binder with aggregate. The key failure of
4 GRADY
F I G U R E 2 Adapted from Reference [1]. Temperature above
each bar is the approximate temperature at which the plastic will
become a melt. Polyurethane and polyamide have a range of
temperatures ( ± 20 C). n/a means material will soften but never
become a viscous liquid. Additives represents solids, colorants and
plasticizers that have been added. Data listed had PP and acrylic
fiber listed as one entry so they were split in half for this chart
plastics in asphalt concrete is poor interfacial adhesion
between the plastic and the asphalt binder and hence
strategies that can be used for plastics that are not melts
(e.g. surface treatments) would be expected to be totally
ineffective for plastics that melt. Alternatively if the melt
can wet, or be made to wet, the aggregate, then having a
plastic that melts would be preferred.
Most studies do not use mixed waste streams, at least
partly because of the melt/solid issue. Obviously, there is
a significant economic benefit of being able to use a
mixed waste stream. Even more important perhaps is
that small amounts of impurities (pigments, food, oil,
grease) that are often part of any plastic waste stream are
likely to not cause a problem with asphalt concrete
because their concentration will be too low. In this
author's opinion, if a method can be developed that
improves interfacial adhesion between the asphalt binder
and the plastic, then this method will likely be effective
for most post-consumer plastic waste streams without
significant cleanup of the waste stream. Because the tem-
perature at which the different components of a post-
consumer plastic waste streams becomes a melt is not
uniform suggests that some separation by type may be
necessary.
Certain polymers are purposefully added to increase
mechanical properties of the asphalt concrete or change
the interfacial interaction between the binder and the
aggregate; these polymers are not a subject of this review.
However, those that are purposefully added do give some
idea of how waste polymers might be viewed. Thermo-
plastic elastomers, that is, styrene-butadiene-styrene
(SBS) terpolymers, phase separate with the butadiene
being fully soluble in the binder and the polystyrene
domains not soluble. These compounds increase fatigue
resistance because the polystyrene domains act as cross-
links and hence improve the flexibility of the binder.[15]
Reactive polymers, that is, acrylates, react with the
binder and improve the stiffness of the concrete. Reactive
copolymers can increase interfacial adhesion to a waste
polymer via reaction as will be discussed below.
The review is divided into three sections: cases where
the plastic is expected to melt in the binder during prepa-
ration, cases where the plastic is not expected to melt, and
a few cases where mixed feedstocks are used. In the discus-
sion below, rheological and mechanical properties are
described separately within each section. For the purposes
of this review, rheological refers only to measurements
made at temperatures and shear rates relevant for mixing,
application, or compaction. Other rheological measure-
ments are correlated to mechanical performance and will
be found in the mechanical or aging sections. The next
section starts with a fundamental description of what a
melted polymer will do in a binder since the final particle
size of the solid polymer that exists after cooling will be a
function of process that occur while the polymer is melted.
2 | P L A S T I C TH A T ME L T S
DU R I N G M IX I N G
2.1 | Droplet breakup and coalescence
When a plastic is used that is a melt during mixing, drop-
lets will form in the asphalt. To this author's knowledge,
no plastic melt is soluble in the asphalt binder so the melt
will form a separate phase in the liquid that will persist as
the mixture cools. Because the viscosity of the polymer is
significantly higher than the viscosity of the asphalt binder
(e.g. the viscosity ratio is high), the asphalt should be
unable to disperse the polymer to any significant degree.
The reason for this statement is described in the article by
Stone[16]; for any pure shear flow with a viscosity ratio
greater than 4 the drop rotates like a rigid body rather
than stretches because of vorticity. A purely elongational
flow would be able to break up the drop irrespective of the
viscosity ratio; however, the elongational flow component
of typical asphalt mixers is not large.
However, this simplified picture is misleading in that
reductions in polymer droplet size do occur during
mixing. The polymer phase will be swollen significantly
by lower molecular weight species found in asphalt
binder and hence the viscosity ratio is much smaller than
the ratios of pure polymer and pure binder. Depending
on the polymer, the amount of asphalt contained in the
polymer droplets can be many times the amount of
GRADY
polymer. Another consequence of extensive swelling is
that the interfacial tension is small which also favors
droplet breakup; in one study with LDPE a value of
10−6 N/m was found at 180 C.[17] In fact, one study spe-
cifically noted that a particular LLDPE had significantly
smaller drops during mixing versus HDPE and LDPE.
Because of the very small change in Hansen solubility
parameters with branching, the authors attributed the
smaller drops in LLDPE due to a reduced melt elasticity
of the LLDPE versus the other PEs.[18] Another study
noted that higher molecular weight LDPE (e.g. higher
melt elasticity) yielded larger drop sizes than its lower
molecular weight counterpart.[19] This result suggests
that one way to improve properties of recycled plastics
that melt in asphalt is to reduce melt elasticity. Another
way is suggested by increasing the elongational flow com-
ponent of mixing; a study showed that rotor-stator mixers
produce much better dispersions of various polymers in
binder versus a stirred tank and the former have much
larger elongational flow components.[20]
Coalescence is one reason restricting polymer loading
in binder because large inclusions will form if coales-
cence occurs. In fact, waste plastic bags (usually a mix-
ture of LDPE and LLDPE) have been shown to phase
separate from the binder into a separate layer at HMA
mix temperatures with no agitation.[21] Plastics com-
monly found in post-consumer waste do not have any
affinity for the aggregate and are not preferentially
adsorbed on the aggregate surface. As stated previously,
the interface between the polymer particles and the
highly viscous asphalt is weak and is considered the
source of the generally poor properties in measurements
sensitive to the interface as will be described below.
A smaller starting particle size prior to melting should
lead to smaller final particle size after melting. A dissipa-
tive energy comparison using sinusoidal strains above the
linear viscoelastic limit at room temperature was used to
compare HDPE, LDPE and PP as fillers for asphalt binder
+ aggregate (at binder volume fractions much larger than
typical) after high temperature high speed mixing, melting
and cooling. LDPE had the best performance which was
attributed to the particle size of the dispersed polymer
phase being significantly smaller.[22] Another approach to
reduce coalescence is to reduce the temperature. WMA
allows lower mixing temperature, and in fact the polymer
might emulsify along with the binder if water is used. This
approach was used at low LDPE concentrations (4%) and
phase separation during storage at higher temperatures
was reduced although this material was not used to make
an asphalt concrete.[23] Finally, the addition of reactive
groups can yield to smaller particle sizes.[19]
An interesting study examined the growth of various
PE particles in asphalt binder at a temperature well
5
above the melting temperature of each material after
mixing, with the results reproduced in Figure 3. Each
particle grew substantially, to the point where the area
fraction of the particles was much larger than the volume
fraction consistent with the 5 wt% added polymer. The
authors concluded that swelling of the particles was
occurring. Surprisingly, LLDPE showed a much smaller
growth in particle size than the other materials which
could not be explained by the viscosity of the polymer
since the melt flow index (MFI) was in the middle of the
four polymers studied. Although crystallinities were not
given, in general HDPE has the highest crystallinity so
crystallinity is likely not the cause of this difference even
though crystalline regions will not swell. LDPE did have
the fastest increase in particle size; in this study this
LDPE also had the highest MFI.[24] Another study, with
storage at 180 C, showed that LDPE also had more coa-
lescence than HDPE in binder.[25] As expected, func-
tionalization of a non-reactive polymer with groups that
react with asphalt will slow coalescence.[26]
2.2 | High temperature rheology of
binder
The effect on the rheological properties of the asphalt with
the addition of melted polymer is to increase the viscosity,
although at very high shear rates this difference is either
small or nonexistent. For example, the addition of only
1 wt% of recycled HDPE to an asphalt binder raised the
complex viscosity at low frequencies by more than an
order of magnitude, while at a frequency of 103 s−1 the
viscosities were identical.[27] The shear rate during mixing
is estimated to be 104–105 s−1 depending on equipment[28]
while that during compaction is 5 × 102 s−1.[29] The vis-
cosity during application is much lower. The conclusion
that mixing and compaction temperatures, and hence the
viscosities at the shear rates relevant for these processes,
are not affected by the addition of melted polymer has
been made elsewhere as well.[30] However, another study
with recycled LDPE at a very large percentage (2:1 wt ratio
of LDPE:binder) showed a  70% increase in torque at a
shear rate that was presumably quite high.[31] Weight per-
centages of HDPE between 2 and 6% showed that the elas-
tic response increased more than the viscous response.[32]
The addition of agents or chemical modification of the
polymer to promote bonding between a waste polymer
and the binder have been found to increase the viscosity
as expected.[33,34] Also, as measured by storage stability
(which is related to drop coalescence), a study found that
there was an optimal mixing time between waste polyeth-
ylene packaging bags (typically a mixture of LDPE and
LLDPE) and asphalt binder.[35]
6 GRADY

F I G U R E 3 Growth of polymer particle diameter with time in an asphalt binder at 163 C after mixing and cooling. MDPE is medium
density polyethylene. The y-axis in all plots is the percentage of particles with the mean diameter on the y-axis. Modified from
Reference [24]

135 C is a testing temperature for a viscosity test that
is contained in a commonly used list of guidelines for
asphalt binder.[36] This temperature is near the solid–
liquid transition of many waste plastics; because of the
adsorption of low molecular weight binder components
into the amorphous sections of the semicrystalline poly-
mers as well as possibly smaller crystallites that form
after mixing, the actual melting temperature has been
measured to be 10 C less than the melting temperature
of the pure polymer when the polymer is melted and
then encapsulated in binder.[37,38] Not surprisingly,
HDPE added to binder evaluated at a temperature
slightly above its melting point, for example, a WMA
mixing temperature, shows a very strong effect of
concentration on viscosity at low shear.[39] Increasing the
temperature from below the melting temperature to
above the melting temperature at 2–5 wt% of filler for
HDPE and PP caused a reduction in viscosity difference
between filled and unfilled binder at low shear rates;
however, the viscosity reduction was close to LDPE over
the same concentration range which presumably did not
go through that transition.[15]
2.3 | Mechanical properties of concrete
Overall, the addition of a polymer to a binder causes an
increase in binder stiffness, and related properties such
GRADY
as an increase in softening point and decrease in penetra-
tion, which is not surprising since at the temperature of
testing (typically between 25 and 80 C) the polymer will
be a solid in the binder. There are many papers that have
these or similar conclusions with respect to binder, and
the interested reader is referred to the review papers
mentioned earlier. Since the increase in binder properties
is of interest only in an indirect sense, this section will
focus on properties of the concrete. Indirect tensile
strength (ITS), tensile strength ratio (TSR), rutting tests
and fatigue tests are tests used more-or-less universally
on concretes and will be described below. Because the
exact specifics of the test varies from state to state in
the United States, and from country to country and the
values of the non-polymer containing concrete depend
on formulation, percentages rather than absolute values
will be used for most results below. Note that all percent-
ages of plastic added, unless otherwise noted, are weight
percentages on a binder basis.
2.3.1 | ITSTSR
The addition of a small amount of polymer causes an
increase in both ITS and TSR typically. For example, a
very small particle size (less than 100 nm average size)
HDPE showed a  15% increase in ITS and an increase
in TSR from 81 to 88% with 3 wt% HDPE addition.[30]
The value of the ITS was five times larger with 3 wt%
PP in one study without any change in the TSR.[40] A
comparison of HDPE and LDPE with four different rock
types consistently showed higher TSR for HDPE than
LDPE at 9 wt% plastic with wet mixing outperforming
F I G U R E 4 Change in indirect tensile strength (ITS) (solid lines) and tensile strength ratio (dashed lines) with waste plastic
incorporation. Dark lines are dry mixed while light lines are wet mixed. Adapted from Reference [49]
7
dry mixing.[41] A study comparing waste HDPE and PP
found that the former had 10% ITS improvement and
17% TSR improvement at 4 wt% addition with none and
8% for the latter with 3 wt% addition, respectively.[42] In
another case, ITS improved by 15% with 6% waste
LDPE film addition while the TSR dropped from slightly
over 100% to 85%.[43] In another case, ITS did not
improve at 2 wt% for both HDPE and PP and improved
by 20% at 5 wt% polymer content.[44]
Usually, the addition of plastic causes a rise in ITS up
to a certain amount, at which point the ITS begins to
decrease. For example, adding LDPE increased the ITS
by 20% up to 1 wt% LDPE; at 3% LDPE the ITS was 10%
lower than the concrete with no LDPE.[31] Another study
with waste LDPE found a maximum 20% improvement
in ITS at 5 wt%; at 10 wt% the ITS was lower than the
concrete without any plastic.[45] The addition of polypro-
pylene caused an increase in ITS by 15% at 2 wt% con-
tent; at 3 wt% the value dropped.[46] A study with very
high percentages (2, 4 and 6 wt% based on the mixture
weight, which corresponds to 30, 45 and 60 wt% on a
binder basis) using both an HDPE/LDPE mix as well as
just PP showed 10–20% drops in ITS except for two data
sets.[47] A study with 2 wt% waste polyethylene showed a
50% increase in ITS while only a 20% increase was found
for 6 wt% virgin LDPE.[48] Figure 4 shows the type of
behavior that is common; an increase of ITS and TSR at
low added fractions followed by a decrease above some
fraction. This figure also confirms that the amount of
plastic required to show a decrease varies with formula-
tion and processing specifics.[49] Overall, TSR tends to
qualitatively mirror the trends in ITS. These results are
consistent with the fact that the larger the inclusion, the
8 GRADY
F I G U R E 5 Indirect tensile test results for unaged and aged
asphalt concrete samples made with 0.7 wt% (total mixture basis)
polypropylene. Dark bars represent unaged samples while lighter
bars have been aged (aging reduced the ITS by about 25%). Aging
was done by holding the samples at elevated temperature in an
oven and is meant to simulate aging during the first 5 years of
pavement life. Adapted from Reference [52]
more the ultimate properties of the concrete tend to
weaken (larger volume fractions will lead to larger inclu-
sions because coalescence will occur more frequently
everything else being equal). Hence, the fraction where
this downturn in ITS and TSR occurs varies; not surpris-
ing since the final particle size will depend on the mixing
procedures, the interfacial tension between the asphalt
swollen particles and the asphalt, the viscosity of the
asphalt etc.
Not surprisingly, higher temperatures tend to increase
the percentage improvement in ITS with the addition of
plastic, although of course the absolute value of ITS
decreases as temperature increases. A very large increase
in ITS of 47, 68, and 71% at 25, 35, and 45 C, respectively,
with 5 wt% waste LDPE was found for a porous asphalt
concrete ((produced using a much larger proportion of
large aggregate and used in tropical regions with large
amounts of rainfall). A higher percentage increase in ITS
at 60 versus 25 C (50% vs. 20%) was also found at
5 wt% HDPE addition with a marked decrease for both at
7 wt%; the TSR increased from 80 to 95% from 0 to 5 wt%
and then fell to 87% at 7 wt% content.[50] In one case, the
ITS was less for samples with a few percent added waste
HDPE at low temperatures (5–20 C) while being higher
at higher temperatures; the TSR at room temperature
increased a few percent with added HDPE.[51] Similar
behavior for the ITS was found for PP-filled samples
where the crossover temperature was 48 C.[52]
A very interesting study[53] found that coating aggre-
gate with polypropylene (heating the aggregate at 230 C
and then slowly adding crushed polypropylene to aggre-
gate that is being mixed) does improve performance sig-
nificantly of the asphalt concrete as shown in Figure 5.
The concrete was mixed at 166 C so in all cases the PP
should melt.
2.3.2 | Rutting
A commonly used specification for asphalt binder is the
ratio G*/sin δ measured at a frequency of 10 rad/sec,
where G* is the complex shear modulus and δ is the
phase angle. This parameter is correlated to the rutting
resistance and higher values of this parameter are
desired, that is, a higher modulus material with more
elasticity shows less rutting. The addition of virgin HDPE
of very small particle size (less than 100 nm) caused an
increase in this parameter versus the base resin, with a
corresponding improvement in the rutting resis-
tance.[30,54] Other studies of have found similar results
for recycled LDPE[55,56] and LLDPE[57] The addition of
recycled HDPE along with crumb rubber from vehicle
tires showed that the HDPE coated the rubber and
improved G*/sin δ.[58] The addition of both has been
found to improve creep resistance, thought to be due to
the rubber, as well as rutting resistance.[59] Improve-
ments in G*/sin δ were seen in another study using
recycled HDPE and crumb rubber as well which also
showed that a wax residue can help compatibility of these
two waste materials in asphalt binder which was attrib-
uted to smaller particle sizes of the dispersed phase.[60]
Desulfurizing the rubber was shown to improve this mea-
surement in rubber mixtures with virgin LDPE, again
attributed to better dispersion of the filler.[61]
As noted elsewhere, the G*/sin δ parameter is not a
very good predictor of rutting performance. Another test
for asphalt binder, namely multiple stress creep recovery,
has much better correlation.[62] In this test, a specific stress
is put on a sample at a given temperature, and the recov-
ery is measured for a specified time interval that is con-
stant and then more stress is added and the recovery is
measured etc. The Jnr, which is the permanent strain/
stress (typically averaged over all 10 tests) is reported.
Improvements, that is reductions, in Jnr have been found
for LDPE[63,64] and HDPE.[65,66] One study saw an increase
in Jnr with the addition of LDPE which was attributed to a
higher viscous part of the viscoelastic response.[67]
A more direct measure of rutting performance, that is
the resistance of the road to undergo creep deformation
due to tires running over the surface is the Hamburg
wheel tracking test. In this test, a wheel with a specified
normal force passes over an asphalt concrete held a speci-
fied temperature via immersion in a water bath. The tem-
perature is specified by the category of mix used.
Typically the deformation after a set number of passes
(typical values are a frequency of 1 Hz and 20,000 passes)
is reported with a smaller deformation distance being
better. Alternatively, the test is halted when some defor-
mation is reached and the number of cycles required to
reach that deformation is reported. As expected from Jnr
GRADY
F I G U R E 6 Number of passes to reach 20 mm rutting depth in
Hamburg wheel tracking test as a function of low-density
polyethylene (LDPE) added to binder. Adapted from Reference [45]
results, improved rutting performance results with the
addition of plastic; for example the addition of a small
particle size HDPE at 3 and 5 wt% loading levels led a
decrease from 17 mm with no plastic to 10–5 mm, respec-
tively.[30] The reduction was much smaller but in the
same direction for another study using waste HDPE at
similar loading levels.[51] A study with LDPE found a
reduction from 15.7 mm to 3.4 mm with the addition of
3 wt% polymer; increases to 6 and 9 wt% gave smaller
improvements.[68] Large reductions were also found for
waste polyethylene film and LDPE.[48] Figure 6 shows
the number of cycles required to reach a certain depth as
a function of LDPE amount added to the binder in one
study; such maximum are not as common as they are in
ITS results.[45] Two commercial materials made from a
proprietary mix of recycled plastics (one elastomeric, one
plastomeric) show 50% reduction in rutting depth at
conditions that produce a 10 mm rutting depth in the
unmodified concrete and almost no change at conditions
that produce a 2 mm rutting depth at 6 wt% plastic con-
tent.[69] Grafting groups that will react with the binder
improves rutting performance. For example, grafting 1%
maleic anhydride onto waste polyethylene causes the
deformation to decrease by about a factor of 4 in a con-
crete where the polyethylene was about 7 wt% of the
binder[70]; results on other polymers reactively modified
with peroxides also show improvements in rutting resis-
tance.[71] Finally, and perhaps most importantly, field
tests of asphalt concrete with 4.7 wt% waste PE bags
showed no wheel path cracking after 5 years while the
control section showed such cracking.[72]
2.3.3 | Fatigue tests
Interfacial weakness between the polymer and the binder
will manifest itself in temperature variations that
9
naturally occur, because mismatched thermal expansion
coefficients will yield tensile stresses in the system which
is the cause of interfacial debonding. With any failure
that is primarily driven by interfacial weakness, the key
mechanical test is one that has a tensile component.
Fatigue experiments (sinusoidal loadings) tend to accen-
tuate interfacial failures as well. The most common type
of test is a four point bend test. A detailed description of
the mechanics of this test are beyond the scope of this
review, however a tensile component occurs in the bot-
tom half of the sample and is maximum at the bottom
edge. The number of cycles required for a specific drop in
modulus (typically 50%) is usually reported; clearly larger
values are better. Again, because the absolute numbers
will depend strongly on sample and test conditions, per-
centage changes are reported.
In the case of three waste polyethylenes the number
of cycles to failure was unchanged while both SBS copol-
ymer and crumb rubber increased the fatigue life.[32] In
one study, the number of cycles dropped by more than a
factor of 5 with 7% added HDPE.[73] 6 wt% waste LDPE
plastic dropped the number of cycles by 33% on both
aged and unaged samples.[43] The addition of 0.5% waste
LDPE improved fatigue resistance by 25% with lime-
stone aggregate in one case, while in the other with por-
phyry aggregate the fatigue resistance dropped by a factor
of 3.[31] The fatigue life dropped by about 50% over a
range of initial strains for 2.5 wt% waste PE from bags at
20, 30, and 40 C.[74] In one study, the fatigue life was a
few percent higher with the addition of 2 and 5 wt% PP
and HDPE.[44] Using both 7.5 wt% used motor oil and
4 wt% HDPE improved fatigue resistance by about a fac-
tor of 5 versus a concrete without either of these, and by
about a factor of 2 versus a concrete with only 5 wt% used
motor oil.[75] A factor of 5 increase in fatigue life was also
seen for 5 wt% PE from waste bags being added to a con-
crete.[76] In a different study, a much smaller increase
was found for 5 wt% of HDPE addition; about 16%
improvement. However a wet sample showed a much
larger improvement with HDPE addition; about a factor
of two.[66] A factor of two improvement was seen when
adding both polyphosphoric acid and 4 wt% HDPE; the
former can likely react with the HDPE.[15]
3 | PLASTICS THAT REMAINS
SOLID DURING MIXING
3.1 | High temperature rheology of
binder
Dry mixing, that is, mixing of the polymer with the aggre-
gate, versus wet mixing, that is, mixing with the binder
10 GRADY

prior to adding aggregate, should make little to no differ-

ence in terms of performance for polymers that remain
solid during mixing, unless the polymer is combined with
the aggregate at an aggregate temperature above the
melting point of the polymer.[77] The addition of a few
percent of a polymer solid also will likely not have any
appreciable influence on the viscosity at the high shear
rates involved in mixing and compaction. Viscosity mea-
surements at low temperatures and low shear rates how-
ever showed a factor of 4 increase with 10 wt% recycled
PET at a testing temperature of 135 C,[78] a factor of 3,
4 and 5, respectively, at 5, 10 and 15 wt% PET at 135 C
and very little at 163 C.[79] In one study, the viscosity
shows a slight minimum at 12 wt% PET; this result is
likely due to the fact that the PET was melted prior to
adding the PET to the binder.[77] The zero-shear viscosity
for 11 wt% PVC in binder between 0 and 55 C was orders
of magnitude larger than that of pure binder.[80] Again,
however, the high shear rates relevant during mixing
means that good coating of the aggregate should not be
affected by the addition of a solid polymer to the binder,
although the amount of binder may need to be adjusted
to account for the fact that the binder contains a solid
that will obviously not wet the aggregate.

F I G U R E 7 Variation in ITS (% basis) (top) and variation in ITS

3.2 | Mechanical properties of concrete and TSR as a function of PET added to binder. Top: Adapted from
Reference [81] top. Bottom: Adapted from Reference [82]

The same statements made in Section 2.3 apply here; the

addition of a solid polymer to a binder causes an increase
in stiffness, and related properties such as an increase in
softening point and decrease in penetration. Also, this
section will focus on properties of the concrete: ITS, TSR,
rutting tests and fatigue. Finally, all percentages of plastic
added, unless otherwise noted, are weight percentages on
a binder basis.
3.2.1 | ITS/TSR
Shown in Figure 7 are the results from studies using vari-
ous contents of waste PET that had been cut up into
small pieces (top)[81] and waste PET washed and
reextruded (bottom)[82] before addition to the binder. The
same correspondence noticed earlier with there being an
optimal amount of polymer for maximum ITS was seen
with both papers, and the latter also showed that ITS and
TSR are correlated with one another as well. In another
study, with 10% PET added, the ITS increased by 10% but
the TSR dropped from 0.85 to 0.7.[83] A different study
that also used 10% PET in binder caused an increase in
TSR from 72% to over 90%.[78] ITS for a porous asphalt
concrete was improved significantly (a factor of 3) with
the introduction of 2 wt% PET.[84] Interestingly in
another study, with more air voids the addition of PET
showed an optimal amount at 2 wt% which corresponded
to an increase of 33% in ITS for a smaller PET particle
size (0.3–0.6 mm) and  10% for a larger PET particle
size (1–2 mm). TSR showed a maximum at the same wt
% and was again lower for the larger particle size (83%
and 75%, respectively, vs. 68% for the control) With less
voids, the asphalt concrete without any PET had the
highest ITS, with again the finer particle size having
higher ITS than the smaller particle size.[85] A small
amount (0.4 wt%) of polyamide 6–10 added to a binder
mix that also contained SBS improved the fatigue life by
a few percent.[86] The addition of 5 and 10% PVC powder
increased the ITS by 10% along with an increase of TSR
from 81% to 87% with little difference between the
two loading levels.[87] In another study with PVC in a
porous asphalt concrete at 2 wt% loading there was no
change in ITS but at 4 wt% loading the ITS dropped
by 25%.[88]
One possibility would be to form the waste plastic
into fibers if not already in that form. Whether fiber ori-
entation occurs during application of a fiber in a road has
GRADY
not been determined to this author's knowledge; what
direction orientation should occur to maximize road lon-
gevity has also not been determined. At loadings of 0.5
and 1 vol% of the concrete (on a per asphalt basis that
corresponds to roughly 5 and 10 wt%) the increase in ITS
was about 2.5% and 5% for samples containing PET fibers
and 0% and 10% for samples containing polyamide fibers.
TSRs increased from 80% for the sample without fiber to
84% for the sample with fiber for both polyamide and
PET.[89] The addition of polyamide 6–10 fibers at weight
fractions between 0.5 and 2 wt% on a total mix basis
(roughly 5–20% on a binder basis) caused an increase of
about 15% in ITS at the optimal content of 1 wt% on a
total mix basis. An optimal TSR was also found at the
same fiber content which corresponded to a change from
81% to 88%.[90] A study on recycled carpet fabrics found
that the critical pullout length (e.g where the mode of
failure changed from interfacial failure to fiber breakage)
from binder was 9.2 mm for a particular fiber; however
the addition of these fibers at 0.25–1 vol% on a total
aggregate basis (approximately 1.5–6 wt% on a binder
basis) decreased the ITS by about 15% at the maximum
loading with no consistent differences between 6 and
12 mm fibers.[91]
3.2.2 | Rutting
As with melts, there are some studies that look at asphalt
binder. An asphalt binder showed significant desirable
increases in G*/sin δ and reductions in Jnr at temperatures
between 58 and 76 C with the addition of PET[92] A mono-
tonic increase in G*/sin δ was found with PET addition up
to 15 wt%[79] and PVC addition up to 5 wt% PVC.[93] How-
ever, an optimum at 2 wt% was found in another study for
PVC addition with respect to G*/sin δ.[94]
With respect to the concrete, some studies show a
monotonic improvement in rutting resistance with added
solid plastic. A reduction from 5 to 0.5 mm was found with
the addition of 14% waste PET material.[77] A similar study
at high percentages of PET (0.25% to 1 wt% on an aggre-
gate basis, which roughly corresponds to 5–20 wt% on a
binder basis) showed a monotonic decrease in rutting
depth with PET added amount. However, three particle
sizes were tested; for the two larger particle sizes, the rut-
ting depth for the sample with 0.25 wt% on an aggregate
wt% basis was higher than the sample with no PET.[95]
Again, most studies show a maximum improvement
at some intermediate added plastic amount. An optimal
amount of 7.5 wt% added PET for minimum rutting was
also found in the same study corresponding to the bottom
part of Figure 7, i.e. the same weight fraction as the maxi-
mum in ITS. However, the increase in rutting at higher
11
2.0
1.8
1.6
Rut Depth (mm)
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10
wt % PET
F I G U R E 8 Variation in rut depth in rutting test. Adapted from
Reference [96]
percentages was much less significant than the reduction
in ITS shown in Figure 7.[82] As shown in Figure 8, an
optimal amount of PET added was found at 4 wt% in
another study.[96] In another case, PET was added to the
aggregate at concentrations from 0.1 to 1.1 wt% (on an
aggregate weight percent basis; the equivalent basis on a
binder basis is 2 to 22 wt%) and the sample with 0.5 wt
% on an aggregate basis was found to have the optimal
rutting resistance improvement, from 9 to 6 mm.[97] As
was found with ITS and TSR as described above, a maxi-
mum in rutting resistance was found for addition of 1 wt
% on a total weight basis of polyamide fiber.[90]
3.2.3 | Fatigue tests
Overall, data for plastics that do not melt during mixing
is not as negative as for plastics that do melt during
processing, although as mentioned previously the
amount of data for the former case is about a factor of
3 less than the amount of data for the latter case. An
increase in fatigue life by a factor  10 occurred in one
case where 10 wt% waste PET was added to asphalt con-
crete.[78] Roughly a half order of magnitude increase in
the number of cycles to failure occurred with the addition
of waste PET that had been cut into small pieces.[98]
Almost no change in fatigue life occurred at both 5 and
20 C for levels of PET added from 0 to 10%.[81] A mono-
tonic increase in fatigue life with the addition of PET
from 0.2 to 1 wt% on an aggregate basis (approximately
4–20 wt% on a binder basis) was found in another study
at three different microstrains; the increase at the highest
loading level averaged about a factor of 2 although the
increase was only about a factor of 1.5 at the highest
strain.[99] A study that used design of experiments meth-
odology that probed PET content from 0–1 wt% on an
aggregate basis (approximately 0–20 wt% on a binder
basis) along with temperature and strain found that PET
12
F I G U R E 9 Cycles to failure as a function of PET added to
concrete with top representing 1 cm fibers and the bottom 2 cm
fibers. Legend refers to strain and are in units of microstrain.
Adapted from Reference [101]
content over this range increased the fatigue life only
slightly, about 40% increase at the highest content stud-
ied.[100] Figure 9 shows the change in fatigue life as a
function of PET fiber length and strain for the fatigue
test. Longer fibers tend to help more, and there does
seem to be an optimum that varies with strain and fiber
length.[101] A study with polyamide fibers from between
0.1 and 0.4 wt% on a mixture basis (roughly 2–5 wt% on a
binder basis) showed that a monotonic increase in fatigue
life occurred with addition of the fibers, from 6000 cycles
with no fibers to 7600 at the highest concentration of
added fibers.[102] A study with PVC found a slight
improvement in fatigue life of the binder at low strains
while a more significant reduction at high strains.[87]
4 | OTHER STRATEGIES
Studies with mixed plastics are limited where at least one
will melt during mixing of binder and aggregate and the
other(s) will not. In one case, a mixture of HDPE, PVC
and PET was used with the ITS increasing with a small
(2%) reduction in tensile strength ratio. The authors noted
the importance of premixing the heated aggregate with
GRADY
the polymer to allow the HDPE to melt. The particle size
did not have a significant effect, except in the
preheating step.[103] A truly mixed waste, i.e. one that
was gathered from a municipal waste recycle facility
with no sorting, has been studied. With adding the
mixed waste to the aggregate, the ITS decreased by 5%
for a larger particle size and 40% for a smaller particle
size at 10 wt% (although at 20 wt% for the latter, the
ITS was 15% higher) Compared to the concrete without
plastic, the TSR was higher for the smaller particle size
and smaller for the higher particle size. The fatigue life
increased by as much as an order of magnitude with
the smaller particle size mixed waste at 9.5 wt%; how-
ever, the slope with the amount of strain was much
more steep meaning at very low applied strains the
two overlapped. This paper also concluded that mixing
some of the mixed waste with the binder and some
with the aggregate may yield the best results.[104]
Another strategy to mix waste plastics into asphalt
binder is to depolymerize or degrade the polymer into a
liquid first. PET was first chemically depolymerized using
ethanolamine and the resultant product was bis
(2-hydroxy ethylene) terephthalamide (BHETA). This
small molecule seemed to be soluble in the binder,
i.e. the viscosity of the binder decreased. The addition of
various percentages to a binder containing 10 wt% crumb
rubber increased G*/sin δ and, consistent with this result,
reduced Jnr as well.[105] Better performance in various
measurements was found when the terminal groups were
amines instead of hydroxyls in BHETA indicating that
the identity of the terminal groups are important likely
because of the more facile reactivity of amines.[106] A sim-
ilar approach, except in this case using glycolysis via pro-
pylene glycol, was used as well. In this case, the reaction
was complete in one case and only 50% complete in the
other. In both cases, the viscosity decreased and various
low temperature properties were improved. Most inter-
estingly perhaps, with enough of either material the vis-
cosity was lowered enough so that WMA-type procedures
were possible without the addition of any other agent to
reduce binder viscosity.[107] Reacting BHETA with a
diisocyanate in situ in the binder yielded a performance
similar to that found with SBS terpolymers, which is not
surprising since both belong to the broader polymeric
category of thermoplastic elastomers.[108]
Waste tire rubber and various polymers (HDPE,[73,109]
LDPE and LLDPE,[110] EPDM and HDPE,[111] PET[92,105,112]
have been examined extensively. As the addition of
rubber is beyond the scope of this review a detailed
description will not be provided, however the effect is as
one would expect in terms of increasing resilience. As
detailed previously, the addition of polymer improves
mechanical properties except those related to fatigue. No
GRADY
interaction between these non-reactive polymers and the
rubber has been found.
In one unique idea, layering polyethylene sheets
made from waste polymer between layers of asphalt will
reduce crack propagation through the concrete.[113]
5 | O V E R A LL SU M M A R Y
Addition of plastic, whether they melt or not, increase
properties related to stiffness. For plastics that melt,
oftentimes the amount of asphalt can be reduced which
causes a higher solids content at use temperature. Tensile
strengths also typically increase, but in most cases, there
is an optimal amount of plastic to add which is on the
order of 10% of the binder content or 1% of the total mix.
The fact that an optimal amount exists is due to poor
interfacial adhesion between the plastic and the binder.
The same reason accounts for the sometimes-reduced
performance of fatigue tests since those tests are most
sensitive to interfacial adhesion.
6 | FUTURE POSSIBLE AREAS OF
INTEREST
Most asphalt comes from the bottoms of a distillation col-
umn that is used to refine crude oil and produce fuel. The
economics of this operation is in the value of fuel pro-
duced; the asphalt is entirely an afterthought. If the
world's consumption of oil decreases, which is expected
due to the emergence of electric cars as well as environ-
mental pressures on oil, asphalt available for road con-
struction will decrease. Although a few papers in this
review have examined the degradation of waste plastics
into liquids, the molecular weight of those components are
much lower than the molecular weights that would be use-
ful as asphalt replacements, i.e. degradation is too com-
plete. One would expect to see more work in the future
regarding waste polymer degradation products as asphalt
replacements. In fact, this author believes that to increase
the amount of waste plastic to more than 1% (on a con-
crete basis) will likely require some sort of molecular
weight reduction of waste plastic.
Another area that has clearly been understudied is
warm mix asphalts. In fact, cases where the plastic does
not melt has been less studied than the case where the
plastic does melt, by a factor of 2–3, which makes sense
currently since HMAs are much more common currently
than WMAs. However, the latter is gaining in market
share due to environmental concerns, so one would
expect more studies on cases where the plastic is solid.
13
Surprisingly, very little has been done on chemically
modifying the surface of a solid plastic to enhance com-
patibility with asphalt, unlike the case of melts where
chemical modification has been studied. Alternatively, as
noted in the manuscript, only one group has tried to
replace enough asphalt binder with a low viscosity degra-
dation product to allow for WMA conditions to be used;
one would expect that this might be a way to both replace
asphalt binder as noted above as well as improve the
environmental footprint of the laying of concrete in road
construction.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
No data are available as this is a review article
ORCID
Brian P. Grady https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4975-8029
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How to cite this article: Grady BP. Waste plastics
in asphalt concrete: A review. SPE Polymers. 2021;
1–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/pls2.10034