Geotech Geol Eng
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-018-0512-0
ORIGINAL PAPER
Experimental Study on Effect of Waste Plastic Bottle Strips
in Soil Improvement
S. Peddaiah . A. Burman . S. Sreedeep
Received: 26 May 2016 / Accepted: 8 March 2018
Ó Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract With rapid advancements in technology
globally, the use of plastics such as polyethylene bags,
bottles etc. is also increasing. The disposal of thrown
away wastes pose a serious challenge since most of the
plastic wastes are non-biodegradable and unfit for
incineration as they emit harmful gases. Soil stabi-
lization improves the engineering properties of weak
soils by controlled compaction or adding stabilizers
like cement, lime etc. but these additives also have
become expensive in recent years. This paper presents
a detailed study on the behavior and use of waste
plastic in soil improvement. Experimental investiga-
tion on reinforced plastic soil results showed that,
plastic can be used as an effective stabilizer so as to
encounter waste disposal problem as well as an
economical solution for stabilizing weak soils. Plastic
reinforced soil behaves like a fiber reinforced soil.
This study involves the investigation of the effect of
plastic bottle strips on silty sand for which a series of
compaction, direct shear and California bearing ratio
(CBR) tests have been performed with varying
percentages of plastic strips and also with different
aspect ratios in terms of size. The results reflect that
S. Peddaiah  A. Burman (&)
Department of Civil Engineering, NIT Patna, Patna,
Bihar, India
e-mail: avijitburman@yahoo.com
S. Sreedeep
Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Guwahati,
Guwahati, India
there is significant increment in maximum dry unit
weight, Shear Strength Parameters and CBR value
with plastic reinforcement in soil. The quantum of
improvement in the soil properties depends on type of
soil, plastic content and size of strip. It is observed
from the study that, improvement in engineering
properties of silty sand is achieved at 0.4% plastic
content with strip size of (15 mm 9 15 mm).
Keywords Plastic bottle strips  Waste disposal
methods  Soil stabilization  Compaction test  Direct
shear test  CBR test
1 Introduction
Plastic products have become an integral part in our
daily life as a basic need. It is produced on a massive
scale worldwide and its production crosses 150 million
tonnes per year globally. As per survey conducted by
Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India
(Times of India, April 30 2015) in 60 cities of India,
the quantity of plastic waste generation is estimated to
be 15,342.6 tonnes per day (TPD) which is approx-
imately 5.6 million per annum (TPA) while more than
6000 tonnes remain uncollected and littered.
One of the most important reasons found in a survey
reflects that the cause of 2005 Mumbai city flood was
due to choking of drains by plastic waste materials
thrown indiscriminately by the users. This is a prime
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example of how the non-biodegradable waste plastic
garbage creates difficulties in our lives. Therefore,
there is a need to dispose these garbage products
properly. Their use as reinforcing materials for weak
soils to improve its strength is a way of recycling these
materials in a meaningful, efficient and cost effective
manner. Their applications in soil stabilization of base,
subbase courses of pavement, reinforcements for
earthen embankments and to reduce the settlement
of soil in foundations are some examples of using
these materials for civil engineering purposes. Also,
waste plastic can be used in soil improvement as a
replacement for other expensive admixtures like
cement, lime etc. as plastic is a cheaper alternative.
As per the study by Modak et al. (2012), if locally
available soil is inadequate to support design maxi-
mum loads, the properties can be improved by soil
stabilization techniques by adding suitable additives.
Soil stabilization using raw waste plastic bottle
strips is an alternative method for improving subgrade
and stability of earth embankments. This new tech-
nique of soil stabilization can be effectively used to
meet the challenges of society and to reduce the
quantity of waste plastic that lead to eco-friendly safe
environment. Plastic wastes generally include Poly-
ethylene Terephthalate (PET), High Density Poly-
ethylene (HDPE), Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE),
Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC), Poly Propylene (PP) and
Polystyrene (PS). In this study, PET plastic bottle
strips are used to improve the engineering Properties
of soil.
2 Literature Review
While performing constructions on weak soils, it is
very common practice to use a variety of ground
improvement techniques (such as cement, lime etc.) to
address the poor shear strength and bearing capacity
properties of the subgrade or foundation soil. Later
over the years, new advanced technology has been
introduced by Vidal (1969) to reduce the danger of
slope stability, increase bearing capacity and reduce
the lateral deformation by reinforcing the tensile
resisting materials (Geo-synthetics etc.) into the weak
soils. After a few years later, Dutta and Rao (2004)
applied a new tensile force resisting material called
Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) plastic strips and
performed conventional drained triaxial compression
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Geotech Geol Eng
tests mixing LDPE strips with sandy soil. Dutta and
Rao (2004) found that with the addition of LDPE
strips, load bearing capacity of soil also increased but
did not take the account of strip content and size. As a
part of research on improving the strength of weak
soils using tensile resisting material, a new form of
plastic strips called reclaimed High Density Poly-
ethylene (HDPE) are introduced by Choudhary et al.
(2010) and reinforced to locally available sandy soil to
improve the engineering performance of sub-grade
soil. Different concentrations of HDPE strips (0.25,
0.5, 0.75, 1, 2 and 4%) and different lengths and
proportions are added randomly to the sandy soil.
They also observed that increase in the HDPE strip
content and size, CBR values are also increased and
which significantly reduced the sub-grade thickness.
Khabiri Mahammad (2011) added combination of
different waste plastic materials to the plane soil and
coarse granular materials. As a result, Khabiri
Mahammad (2011) observed that, tensile and com-
pressive strengths of soils improved significantly.
Chouksey and Babu (2011) introduced a new form of
plastic waste i.e. drinking water bottles to investigate
the effect of the bottle strips on consolidation charac-
teristics. A series of both unconfined compression test
(UCC) and consolidated undrained (CU) triaxial tests
showed that there is benefit of increasing the engi-
neering strength of the soil and also observed that there
is significant reduction in the compressibility param-
eters. But they did not consider the particular propor-
tions of bottle strips so that the behavior of these strips
could be identified with change in percentage of strips.
Further to understand the behavior of plastic strips as
soil reinforcement, Bhattarai et al. (2013) considered a
new gradation of soil such as inorganic silts. Different
plastic concentrations (0.25, 0.5 and 1%) and different
lengths of 10 mm (AR = 1), 20 mm (AR = 2), 30 mm
(AR = 3) and 40 mm (AR = 4) are considered and
mixed with inorganic silts. They performed series of
CBR tests and observed that, with quite controversy to
the strength improvement from the above findings,
CBR values are only increased up to a certain limit of
0.50% strip content and AR of 3 and beyond which the
properties had been decreased. To understand more
about the behavior of HDPE plastic strips, Chebet and
Kalumba (2014) considered HDPE plastic strips
obtained from shopping bags and reinforced them to
two kind of sandy soils called Klipheuwel and Cape
Flat sands. The investigators considered the strip
Geotech Geol Eng
perforations with different diameters as reinforcement
to sandy soils. Series of direct shear tests were
performed on the two type of sands reinforced with
HDPE strips of concentrations i.e. 0.1–0.3% by
weight. They also considered the effect of variation
in the strip size having lengths from 15 to 45 mm and
strip widths from 6 mm to 18 mm. They observed that
maximum angle of internal friction is achieved at
0.1% strip content only with width of 6 mm and
perforation diameter of 2 mm and concluded that at
particular thresholds longer and wider strips led to a
strength reduction. These findings shows that, shear
strength of sandy soils are sensitive and hugely
affected even with small addition of HDPE strips
due their high tensile resisting capacity. To find the
effectiveness of HDPE plastic strips, Amrutha and
Krishnan (2015) considered three different kinds of
samples namely sandy soil fly ash and red soil (silty
clay) with different percentages of HDPE strips such
as 0.5, 1 and 1.5% and various aspect ratios. They
observed that if the amount of plastic strip content and
aspect ratio (AR = length/width) of plastic strip is
increased, CBR value increases up to a certain extent.
After reaching a particular AR, the CBR value
decreased. From the analysis of results it was also
evident that the void ratio was higher for plain soil and
addition of plastic strips lowered void ratio as the
percentage amount of plastic waste were increased in
soil, more voids were occupied with plastic waste and
resulted in overall reduction in voids present in soil.
Analysis of the slope of e-log p curve obtained from
the one dimensional consolidation test showed a
decrease in the slope as the plastic waste content
increased. The results indicated that the compressibil-
ity of soil reduced as the plastic waste content was
increased. The permeability of sand decreased with an
increase in the percentage of plastic waste. By adding
one percent of strips, the void ratio reduced by half of
the original amount.
From all the above findings of the different
researchers, it is observed that the properties of soil
reinforced with plastic strips are very sensitive and can
change with addition of small increments of plastic,
type of plastic strips (LDPE, HDPE, PET and com-
binations of them), with different aspect ratios and
different gradation of soils (sand, silt and clay etc.). In
overall, it is inferred that, with addition of plastic strips
at particular percentage and for particular gradation of
soil there is significant improvement in the strength
characteristic of soil. So it clearly opens a door to
research on the behavior of various kinds of waste
plastic strips and various gradations of soils taking
consideration of various parameters like percentage,
size, shape, perforations etc. As a part of this research
and to provide more accurate information about plastic
strip’s behavior as a reinforcing material, experimen-
tal studies are carried out on silty sand with waste PET
bottle strips with different plastic contents and aspect
ratios. The results obtained clearly show that plastic
bottle strips can perform as a soil reinforcing additive
very effectively.
3 Scope of Work
The scope of present work includes addition of plastic
bottle strips to the locally available soils to enhance
the engineering properties. The work presented in this
paper aims to investigate the improvement of soil
properties such as shear strength, maximum dry
density(MDD) and CBR values by adding strips cut
from plastic bottles. A series of laboratory tests are
conducted on both virgin soils as well as on plastic
reinforced soil to compare the improvement of soil
properties. List of experiments conducted in labora-
tory as per IS/ASTM Codes are given in Table 1.
4 Materials and Methodology
4.1 Natural Soil
Natural soil used in this study is collected from the
plain of Bihar (Patna) is covered by Gangetic
alluvium. The soil is mainly young loam rejuvenated
every year by constant deposition of silt, clay and sand
brought by river streams. The soil is collected at a
certain depth from the ground level. The disturbed soil
sample is then transported to Geotechnical laboratory
of NIT Patna. Large lumps of soil, if any, are
pulverized and kept in oven dry condition at 110 °C
for 24 h.
4.2 Plastic Material
PET is normally termed as Polyethylene Terephthalate
and is produced from petroleum hydrocarbons,
through a reaction between ethylene glycol and
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Table 1 Experiments S. no. List of experiments
performed in the study
1 Specific gravity of soil solids
2 Particle size analysis
3 Atterberg limits
4 Compaction test (standard proctor test)
5 Direct shear test
6 California bearing ratio test
Terephthalate acid. Due to its excellent wearing
resistance, low coefficient of friction and high flexural
modulus, it is regarded as a good additive for
stabilization of soil to improve the engineering
properties of soil. The chemical formula for PET is
(C10H8O4)n.
PET waste water bottles are cut into strips with
width and length of (15 mm 9 15 mm), (15 mm 9
25 mm) and (15 mm 9 35 mm) using scissor and
measuring ruler. Standard Proctor Test, Direct Shear
Test and California bearing ratio (CBR) tests are
conducted without plastic strips and same set of tests
are performed on reinforced soil with plastic strips
with varying percentages of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8%
respectively. The reason behind selecting these par-
ticular sizes and plastic contents is based on the fact
that, literature reviews showed the properties of plastic
reinforced soil change with addition of plastic strip
content with varying sizes. In this research, the
behavior of silty sand with these particular cut plastic
strip sizes and plastic contents is studied by assessing
the engineering properties of the given soil. Later, the
effect of change in strip size at 0.4% plastic content
only is also studies since the improvement in engi-
neering properties for silty sand are found to be
maximum at 0.4% plastic content. Results are
obtained for all mentioned tests for plastic reinforced
soil and comparisons and conclusions are made in the
subsequent sections.
Plastic strips are cut into different lengths of about
15, 25 and 35 mm keeping strip width at 15 mm to be
constant. Plastic strips are mixed with virgin soil
uniformly by applying little water to the soil and thus
making it partially wet. Quantity of plastic strips (Wp)
to be added to a given amount of natural soil is
obtained using the following formula given in Eq. (1)
Wp ¼ aWd ð1Þ
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List of codes (IS/ASTM)
IS:2720-Part 3-1980/ASTM D854-14
IS:2720-Part 4-1985/ASTM D6913-04
IS:2720-Part 5-1985/ASTM D4318-05
IS:2720-Part 7-1980/ASTM D698
IS:2720-Part 13-1986/ASTM D3080
IS:2720-Part 16-1987/ASTM D1883
where a = 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8% of Plastic Content,
Wd = Quantity of Dry Natural Soil (gm.)
5 Experimental Procedure
A series of laboratory tests are conducted on both
virgin soils as well as on plastic reinforced soil. List of
experiments conducted in laboratory with IS codes
and equivalent ASTM codes are shown in Table 1.
The results and discussions for natural soil are
discussed in the following sections. Atterberg limits
on plastic reinforced soils are not determined as these
tests were found difficult to be performed with plastics
added to the soil. If the plastics are added in powder
form, then these tests will be easier to perform on
plastic reinforced soils. The methods and procedures
for adding the plastic strips to virgin soil are discussed
in the following sections.
6 Test Procedure
6.1 Compaction Test
From compaction test, water content-dry density
relationship of soil with varying percentages (0.2,
0.4, 0.6 and 0.8%) of plastic strips is obtained. A series
of Standard Proctor Tests are conducted on reinforced
plastic soil as per (IS-2720 Part-VII) Procedure. First,
the amount of plastic strips (Wp) needed to be mixed in
given natural soil (Wd = 2500 gm) is calculated for
particular percentage of plastic strips (a) as given by
the Eq. (1). The cut plastic strips thus obtained are
added to natural soil after making dry soil partially wet
soil by adding sufficient amount of water to ensure that
the soil samples are approximately uniform and plastic
paste could be formed. Strips and soil are mixed
Geotech Geol Eng
thoroughly until mix becomes uniform and homoge-
neous approximately. As per Standard Proctor Test
procedure, tests are performed for all soil specimens
containing different percentage of plastic strips and
with different lengths of strips.
6.2 Direct Shear Test
This test involves performing a series of laboratory
direct shear tests on soil with different percentages of
plastic strips (0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8% respectively) and
with different lengths of strips (15, 25 and 35 mm). A
calibrated proving ring of 2.5 kN capacity with dial
gauge accuracy of 0.002 and 0.01 mm dial gauge for
horizontal displacement are used. The rate of strain is
1 mm/min. The test is conducted by applying normal
stresses of 42, 70 and 97 kN m2, so that angle of
internal friction and cohesion could be determined.
The rate of strain adopted in this test is inbuilt with
direct shear testing machine used for the study.
However the change in rate of strain and normal
stresses do not show much effect on the final shear
strength parameters of soil but only the time taken for
shear failure of soil sample changes.
At first, sufficient amount of soil is taken and
blended with plastic strips, mixed thoroughly until
uniform and homogeneity is achieved. All test spec-
imens are compacted in shear box of (60 9 60) mm2
at respective MDU and optimum moisture content
(OMC) corresponding to values obtained from Stan-
dard Proctor Test. Selected normal stresses are applied
on the test specimens and the horizontal displacement
and shear load readings are noted after shear failure of
soil sample.
6.3 California Bearing Ratio (CBR) Test
A series of un-soaked California bearing ratio Tests
are performed on reinforced soil with varying plastic
percentages of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8% respectively for
plastic strip size of (15 mm 9 25 mm) as per IS-2720
Part 16 procedure for light static compaction. At first,
plastic strips are blended with 5 kg of soil, and then
mixed thoroughly until homogeneous mix is obtained.
Load required for penetrating through the soil sample
up to 10 mm penetration depths is noted.
7 Results and Discussions
7.1 Natural Soil
In this section, the results for various tests such as
standard proctor tests, direct shear tests and CBR tests
performed on natural soil are presented. The results for
properties of natural soil obtained from these exper-
iments results are shown in Table 2.
Dry sieve analysis is performed on dry soil to
determine the percentages of coarse grained soil and
hydrometer analysis is conducted on the soil sample to
determine the percentages of silt and clay. From
Table 2, it is observed that the percentage of soil
passing through 0.075 mm is more than 50%, so soil is
classified as fine grained soil. As per IS 1498-1970 soil
classification system, from Fig. 1 and Table 2 it is
observed that the given soil is classified as Silty Sand
and having some percentage of clay. Particle size
distribution of given soil is depicted in Fig. 1. To find
maximum dry unit weight and Optimum moisture
content of silty sand, Standard Proctor compaction test
is performed. From the Table 2, it is found that MDU
and OMC values of silty sand are 16.75 kN/m3 and
16.8% respectively.
To perform Direct Shear test, specimen for natural
soil is prepared in (60 9 60) mm2 shear box at MDU
and OMC of natural soil. From Table 2, it is observed
that the cohesion and angle of internal friction for
natural soil are 19 kN/m2 and 23.2° respectively. The
CBR value for natural soil obtained is very low at
3.2% and it requires improvement by means of
admixtures like plastic strips. The following sub
section discusses the results for soil reinforcement
with various plastic contents and strip sizes.
7.2 Effect of Plastic Content for Strip Size
(15 mm 9 25 mm)
In this section, detailed results for plastic reinforced
soil for different plastic contents (%) of soil for
(15 mm 9 25 mm) strip size are presented. A series
of compaction, direct shear and CBR tests are
performed and their corresponding tests results are
shown in Table 3. Compaction curves for different
percentages and Zero Air Void (ZAV) lines at plastic
strip size of (15 mm 9 25 mm) are shown in Fig. 2
and corresponding data points are shown in Table 4.
The black line along the diagonal of compaction
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Table 2 Index and S. no. Property of natural soil Value

engineering properties of
natural/virgin soil without 1 Specific gravity (Gs) 2.68
plastic strips
2 Particle size distribution Gravel (20–4.75 mm) 0%
Sand (4.75–0.075 mm) 21.4%
Silt (0.075–0.002 mm) 57.2%
Clay (\ 0.002 mm) 22.4%
3 Atterberg limits Liquid limit (LL) 34%
Plastic limit (PL) 25%
Plasticity index (PI) 9%
4 Compaction properties Maximum dry unit weight (MDU) 16.75 kN/m3
Optimum moisture content (OMC) 16.8%
5 Un-soaked CBR test California bearing ratio (CBR) 3.2%
6 Shear strength parameters Cohesion(C) 19 kN/m2
Angle of internal friction (u) 23.20

120 maximum dry unit weight and optimum moisture

100
content is achieved. For determining the moisture
content of plastic reinforced soil after compaction,
Percent Finer (%)

80 plastic pieces are taken out from the compacted soil

60
40
20
0 Decrease in MDU for higher percent of plastic
100 10 1 0.1 0.01
Particle Diameter (mm)
Fig. 1 Particle distribution curve of silty sand
curves shown in Fig. 2 is referred to the line of
optimum showing the optimum values of dry unit
weight and moisture content. The degree of saturations
(Sr) at maximum dry unit weights for natural soil, 0.2,
0.4, 0.6 and 0.8% plastic reinforced soil are shown in
Table 3.
Based on the data obtained in Table 3, it is observed
that MDU for natural soil is found out to be equal to
16.75 kN/m3. It increases to 17.5 kN/m3 at 0.2%
plastic content and then to 18.4 kN/m3 at 0.4% plastic
content. If the plastic content is further increased to 0.6
and 0.8% respectively, then the MDU value reduces. It
can be concluded that, there is considerable increment
in maximum dry unit weight of soil up to 0.4% plastic
content of soil (shown in Fig. 2) after which there is
reduction in MDU. In case of OMC, the effect is just
reverse. Therefore, 0.4% of plastic content by mass of
the soil is considered to be the optimum value where
and kept in the oven. Therefore, only that portion of
the compacted reinforced soil was placed in oven
which did not contain plastic pieces. However it is fact
that moisture content of plastic after compaction is too
small and it may be neglected.
0.001 0.0001
content is attributed to the fact that as numbers of
plastic strips are increased, volume of solid fraction of
soil does not make a very good bonding with the
plastic pieces. This phenomenon is also attributed to
the fact that void spaces between soil grains get
completely filled up by the plastic strips for higher
percent of plastic content. Also, the plastic strips can
bend and roll into even smaller shapes under different
compactive efforts. This helps in further packing of
soil grains with plastic strips together. In this way,
compaction test on reinforced soil with plastic strips
yields higher maximum dry unit weight (MDU) and
lower optimum moisture content (OMC). The scien-
tific explanation for this behavior is that the soil and
plastic grains have a closer packing during compaction
up to 0.4% plastic content. If the plastic content is
increased further, then soil grains and plastic strips
start to segregate even with further compactive efforts
as the finer soil grains are replaced by relatively
coarser plastic strips. That is why, the soil mixed with
plastic strips (0.6% and beyond) show decrement in
MDU during compaction test. Generally, as the

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Table 3 Test results of reinforced soil with plastic contents for strip size of (15 mm 9 25 mm)
S. Percent of plastic content for strip size Compaction parameters Shear strength CBR
no. (15 9 25) mm parameters ratio
OMC MDU (kN/ Degree of saturation C (kN/ u CBR
(%) m3) (Sr) (%) m2) (°) (%)

1 0% (natural soil) 16.8 16.75 75 19 23.1 3.3

2 0.2% 16.1 17.5 81.4 28 28.7 7.1
Percentage of incrementa (%) - 4.2# 4.5 8.5 47.4 24.2 115.2
3 0.4% 14.2 18.4 83.45 34 32.8 16.5
Percentage of incrementa (%) - 15.5b 9.9 11.3 78.9 42.0 400.0
4 0.6% 15 18.1 83.25 18 27 13.7
Percentage of incrementa (%) - 10.7b 8.1 11.0 - 5.3b 16.9 315.2
5 0.8% 16.4 17.3 79 13 25 12.5
a b b
Percentage of increment (%) - 2.4 3.3 5.3 - 31.6 8.2 278.8
a
Percentage of increment in properties of soil for all percent of plastic contents is evaluated with respect to properties of natural soil
b
Negative sign indicates decrement in properties of soil with respect to properties of natural soil

Plastic Strip Size (15 mm × 25 mm)

22

21
Dry Unit Weight (kN/m3)

20 natural soil
0.2% plastic
19
0.4% plastic
18 0.6% plastic
0.8% plastic
17
ZAV-natural soil
16 ZAV-0.2% plastic

15 ZAV-0.4% plastic
ZAV-0.6% plastic
14 ZAV-0.8% plastic
0 5 10 15 20 25
Water Content (%)

Fig. 2 Compaction curves for various plastic strip contents

specific gravity of soil sample increases, dry unit
weight also increases. With increasing plastic con-
tents, specific gravity of soil sample also increases and
dry unit weight increases.
For each percentage of plastic strips and strip size
of (15 mm 9 25 mm), direct shear tests (as per IS
2720-part 13-1986) are performed and the results are
shown in Table 3. From the Table 3, it is observed that
the improvement in shear strength parameters is
optimum at 0.4% plastic content. Shear stress
increases due to distribution of plastic pieces in
different directions along surface of shear between
two halves of direct shear boxes. Figure 3 shows that
the Mohr envelop lines with cohesion and angel of
internal friction are being increased up to 34 kN/m2
and 32.8° for 0.4% plastic content. Figure 4 shows the
plastic reinforced soil sample after it has failed in
shear. Figure 5 shows the shear stress–strain behavior
of soil with plastic strips for selective normal stress of
70 kN/m2. Generally addition of plastic to the soil
shows the decreasing trend in cohesion or no change
and increasing trend in angle of internal friction up to
certain percentage of plastic (Poweth et al. 2014, Nsaif
2013). But surprisingly it is observed from this study

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Table 4 Data points for compaction curves of Fig. 2 for plastic strip size of (15 mm 9 25 mm)
Test 0% Plastic (natural 0.2% Plastic 0.4% Plastic 0.6% Plastic 0.8% Plastic
no. soil)
Dry unit Moisture Dry unit Moisture Dry unit Moisture Dry unit Moisture Dry unit Moisture
weight content weight content weight content weight content weight content
(kN/m3) (%) (kN/m3) (%) (kN/m3) (%) (kN/m3) (%) (kN/m3) (%)

1 9.6 15.5 9.2 15.7 8.3 16.1 9.1 16.2 16.1 10.2
2 11.4 16.2 10.9 16.4 10.2 16.6 10.6 16.5 16.6 12.3
3 14.13 16.7 13.2 17.2 12.5 17.82 13.1 17.8 17.1 14.01
4 17.3 16.8 16.2 17.5 14.3 18.45 14.9 18.1 17.4 16.3
5 19.6 16.1 19.2 16.4 18.5 17.1 18.7 17.2 16.7 19.8

Plastic Strip Size (15 mm × 25 mm)

120

100
Shear Stress (kN/m2)

80
natural soil
60 0.2% plastic
0.4% plastic
40
0.6% plastic

20 0.8% plastic

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Normal Stress (kN/m2)

Fig. 3 Mohr envelops for various strip contents

combined soil and plastic mass which may be different

from the type of behavior depicted by exclusively soil
material during shearing. Increase in angle of internal
friction must be due to the fact that the interlocking
capacity between the particles has been increased. It
also depends on the type of plastic (Polyethylene
Terephthalate plastic is used in the study) added to the
soil. The surfaces of the plastic strips are corrugated/
undulated in nature. The nature of surface of plastic
strips has resulted into increased cohesion and angle of
internal friction. If comparison is made with respect to
natural soil’s properties, considerable increase in the
shear strength properties is achieved. With further
increase in plastic content, the shear parameter values
Fig. 4 Plastic reinforced soil sample after shear failure
are observed to show a decreasing trend. Increase in
shear strength parameters is achieved because there is
that there is increasing trend for cohesion and angle of
increase in frictional surface between soil particles and
internal friction with increase of plastic content. This
plastic pieces. It is inferred that the nature of surface of
phenomenon is attributed to the properties of

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90
80
70
Shear Stress (kN/m2)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 2
Fig. 5 Shear stress–strain behavior of plastic reinforced soil
plastic strips (i.e. they are corrugated/undulated) used
in the present study plays a vital role in achieving
higher cohesion and angle of internal friction. If the
plastic strips used would have smoother surfaces, then
it would be difficult to achieve increment in both
parameters i.e. cohesion and angle of internal friction.
If plastic strips with smooth outer surfaces are used,
then it is expected the results will be in accordance
with those obtained by Mercy Joseph et al. (2014) and
Maha Hatem Nsaif (2013).
Un-soaked CBR Tests are conducted for each
percentage of plastic strips and results are shown in
Table 3 and comparisons are made using graphs as
depicted in Figs. 6 and 7. It is clearly observed that
addition of plastic strips in soil increases CBR value
considerably. If such reinforced soil with plastic strips
is used as subgrade material in pavement construction,
the thickness of sub grade can be reduced substan-
tially. The reduction in pavement thickness directly
Plastic Strip Size (15 mm × 25 mm)
25
20
CBR (%)
15
10
5
0 decreased. Therefore, the construction cost is reduced
0 0.2
Plastic Content (%)
Fig. 6 Effect of plastic content on CBR
Strip size (15 mm × 25 mm); Normal Stress=70 kN/m2
0% plastic
0.2% plastic
0.4% plastic
0.6% plastic
0.8% plastic
4 6 8 10 12 14
Shear Strain (%)
leads to reduction in cost of the construction of
pavement. Maximum CBR values are observed to
occur at 0.4% of plastic content of natural soil by mass
as shown in Fig. 6. The decrease in CBR values at
0.6% of plastic content and more happens because as
the numbers of plastic pieces in the soil are increased,
the soil plastic matrix crosses the limit (i.e. 0.4% by
mass of soil) where maximum improvement in shear
strength parameters as well as MDU is achieved.
Beyond this limit, the strength and MDU of soil plastic
matrix is observed to decrease. This type of soil can be
termed as over reinforced soil with plastic strips. The
over reinforcement of soil indicates that large number
of plastic pieces may lead to segregation of soil–
plastic matrix during compaction. Figure 7 shows the
variation of applied load to penetration depth of soil
sample with plastic.
Figure 8 shows the CBR vs. Pavement thickness
curve for design of flexible pavements. From the
Fig. 8, it is observed that sub grade thickness for
natural soil is around 55 cm for heavy traffic condition
(55 kN wheel load) for CBR value of 3.3% and it
reduces to 20 cm for the same traffic condition for
0.4% plastic having CBR value of 16.2%. It implies
that reduction in pavement thickness from 55 cm to
20 cm, quantity of aggregate materials and soil
(borrowed) used in sub-grade thickness and quantity
of bitumen used in base thickness is considerably
0.4 0.6 0.8
by a considerable amount along with the time for
construction of pavements.
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Plastic Strip Size (15 mm × 25 mm)

600

500

400
Load (kg)
natural soil
300 0.2% plastic
0.4% plastic
200
0.6% plastic
0.8% plastic
100

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Penetration (mm)

Fig. 7 Load-penetration curve of plastic reinforced soil

as mentioned earlier in Sect. 5.1 for each plastic strip

Fig. 8 CBR versus pavement thickness curves. (Hansen 1959)
7.3 Effect of Plastic Strip Size Variation for 0.4%
Plastic Content
It has already been observed that the maximum
increase of various soil properties (i.e. MDU, cohesion
and angle of internal friction, CBR value etc.)
happened for (15 mm 9 25 mm) plastic strips at
0.4% of plastic content by mass of the natural soil.
Therefore, in this section, efforts have been made to
change the size of the plastic strips and their effects are
observed by keeping the percentage of plastic content
constant at 0.4%. The same set of tests are carried out
length and test results are shown in Table 5. Based on
the data obtained, detailed discussions have been made
for each plastic strip length.
Since optimum improvements of relevant parame-
ters are obtained at 0.4% plastic content of soil, the
compaction test is extended to compare the properties
with change by varying strip length keeping width
constant for 0.4% plastic strips by mass of natural soil.
Two strip sizes used are (15 mm 9 15 mm) and
(15 mm 9 35 mm) respectively. With change in
length of strip, results obtained are shown in Table 5
and comparisons are shown in Fig. 9.
From the data, it is observed that, when strip length
is decreased, MDU values increase and OMC values
decrease respectively. The values reduced when strip
length is increased to 35 mm. The increase in dry
density due to smaller strip length happen because it
allows for more uniform distribution of the strips
inside the soil mass resulting in denser packing and
thus increasing the dry density of the soil.
Direct Shear Tests are performed for strip lengths of
(15 mm and 35 mm) for 0.4% plastic strip contents.
Figure 10 shows the Mohr envelops for plastic
reinforced soil with different plastic strip lengths of
15, 25 and 35 mm and results are shown in Table 5. It
is concluded that shear strength parameters i.e.
cohesion and angle of internal friction show an
increasing trend for strip size of (15 mm 9 15 mm).
If the length of plastic strip is increased, there is
decrement in shear strength parameters. However, the
improvement in shear strength parameters may differ
for other types of soils for the same proportion of

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Geotech Geol Eng

Table 5 Test results of reinforced soil with plastic strips of different lengths for 0.4% plastic content (the width of the plastic strip is
kept constant at 15 mm)
S. no. Plastic strip length for 0.4% plastic strips Compaction parameters Shear strength parameters CBR ratio
3 2
MDD (kN/m ) OMC (%) C (kN/m ) U(Æ) CBR (%)

1 0% (natural soil) 16.75 16.8 19 23.1 3.3

2 15 mm 18.9 13.7 42 36.5 20.6
Percentage of Incrementa (%) 12.8 - 18.45b 121.05 58.01 524.2
3 25 mm 18.4 14.2 34 32.8 16.5
Percentage of Incrementa (%) 9.85 - 15.47b 78.9 41.9 400
4 35 mm 16.8 16.7 23 25.4 5.9
Percentage of Incrementa (%) 0.29 - 0.59b 21.05 9.9 78.7
a
Percentage of increment in the properties of soil for plastic strip lengths are evaluated with respect to properties of natural soil
b
Negative sign indicates the decrement in the properties of soil with respect to properties of natural soil

Strip Width=15mm; 0.4% Plastic Strips

20
Maximum Dry Unit Weight (kN/m3)

19

18

17 strip length=15mm
strip length=25mm
16
strip length=35mm

15

14
0 5 10 15 20 25

Water Content (%)

Fig. 9 Compaction curves for various strip lengths

plastic. More tests should be carried out in order to
quantify the improvement of related parameters while
using a soil-plastic matrix with varying plastic content.
Three number of CBR tests are conducted for strip
lengths of 15, 25 and 35 mm and the corresponding
results are shown in Table 5.
The effect of plastic strip size variation on plastic
reinforced soil is extended to study the behavior of
load-penetration depth for different plastic strip
lengths of 15, 25 and 35 mm as shown in Fig. 11.
Soil sample is prepared by taking 4.5 kg of soil and
mixing with 0.4% plastic content by mass of soil and
strip lengths of 15, 25 and 35 mm respectively. These
plastic pieces are mixed uniformly throughout the soil
sample and light static compaction is adopted with 3
layers and each layer is given 55 numbers of blows by
2.6 kg rammer. From Fig. 11, it can be observed that
best load-penetration behavior is exhibited by plastic
strip size of 15 mm 9 15 mm. It also shows that the
soil reinforced with plastic strip size of 15 mm 9 15
mm mobilizes maximum stiffness of soil plastic
matrix. From Table 5, it can be assessed that CBR
value is maximum for 15 mm 9 15 mm size of
plastic strips. The increase of strip sizes leads to
reduction in CBR values. Increase in strip size from
15 mm to 25 mm and then to 35 mm in soil plastic
mixture results in decreases the CBR value. It is also
inferred that increase in strip size creates a problem for
non-uniform distribution of plastic pieces inside soil
mass. Therefore, strip size of (15 mm 9 15 mm) and

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Strip Width=15mm; 0.4% Plastic Strips

120

100
Shear stress (kN/m2)
80

strip length =15mm

60
strip length =25mm
40 strip length =35mm

20

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Normal stress (kN/m2)

Fig. 10 Mohr envelops for soil with various strip lengths

Strip Width =15mm; 0.4% Plastic Strips

600

500

400
Load (kg)

natural soil
300
strip length=15mm
strip length=25mm
200
strip length =35mm

100

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Penetration (mm)

Fig. 11 Load–penetration behavior of soil with strip lengths

0.4% plastic content of soil are found out to be most
beneficial from point of view of improvement of soil
properties.
8 Conclusions
From the experimental works carried out, following
conclusions can be made regarding the aspect of
strength improvement of soil due to mixing of plastic
strips as a mean of soil reinforcement.
From the results and discussions of Standard
Proctor Test on plastic reinforced soil, the maximum
dry unit weight (MDU) is observed to be maximum at
0.4% plastic content by mass of natural soil for
(15 mm 9 15 mm) size of plastic strips. MDU values
starts to decrease for higher percentage of plastic
content (0.6 and 0.8% respectively) and for greater
size of plastic strip i.e. (15 mm 9 25 mm) and

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Geotech Geol Eng
(15 mm 9 35 mm) respectively. It is also observed
that, OMC values show just opposite trend of MDU
values for plastic reinforced soil.
Direct shear test results show that both cohesion
and angle of internal friction increase up to 0.4% of
plastic content by mass of natural soil. For higher
percentage of plastic content, the shear parameters are
found to decrease. For lower strip sizes (i.e. 15 mm 9
15 mm), shear strength parameters exhibited highest
improvement at 0.4% of plastic content. From the
results of CBR Test, addition of plastic in percentages
increases the CBR value from 3.3 (Natural soil) to 7.1
(for 0.2% plastic content), 16.5 (for 0.4% plastic
content). Beyond the limit of 0.4% plastic content,
CBR values start showing decreasing pattern. The
nature of the surfaces of plastic strips is also very
important in achieving improvement in strength
characteristics of soil plastic mass. In this work, the
plastic strips used have undulated surfaces which
results into increased cohesion and angle of internal
friction. If the natures of surfaces of plastic strips are
plain/smooth, it may not be possible to get the
improvement of both the shear strength parameters
as has been previously recorded by Mercy Joseph et al.
(2014) and Maha Hatem Nsaif (2013)).
Also, it is observed that increasing the strip size
results in reduction of CBR value from 20.6% (for
15 mm strip length) to 5.9% (for 35 mm strip length)
while the width of the plastic strip is kept constant at
15 mm. It means that the thickness of sub-base can be
reduced to about 30 cm and this directly leads to
saving in pavement construction cost.
For best results of engineering properties of soil
reinforced with plastic strips, it is recommended to use
0.4% plastic content and plastic strip size of
(15 mm 9 15 mm) with natural soil.
It can be concluded that the effect of plastic
reinforcement in soil mass vitally depends on nature of
the surface (i.e. plain/smooth or corrugated/undulated)
and size of strips, plastic content and type of soil used
for the study. For practical applications, it is possible
to prepare PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) plastic
bottle cut pieces of required size and shape using PET
Bottle Shredding Machine. Plastic can be used for
stabilization of embankments, pavement sub-grade
and other fields of civil engineering as per needs for
silty sands. To find out the exact quantum of change of
properties of silty sand with addition of plastics,
further experiments are needed. However, the authors
are certain that there will be improvement of proper-
ties for clayey soil with addition of plastic strips.
Again, if the type of plastic is changed to HDPE,
LDPE, then also quantum of change in soil properties
would be different.
If the plastic strips prepared from waste plastic
bottles are used for soil stabilization instead of those
expensive admixtures such as cement and lime etc.,
the cost of soil stabilization is minimized. Also, the
problem of plastic waste disposal would also be
effectively addressed. Thus, expensive methods for
stabilization process can be replaced by the plastic
reinforcement which will make construction econom-
ical and also will be helpful for recycling the non-
biodegradable plastic wastes.
9 Limitations of Present Study
The present study investigates the effectiveness of
waste plastic bottle strips in improving the behavior of
silty sand. Following are the limitations of the present
study:
1. The tests are done with only one type of soil i.e.
locally available silty sand. The effectiveness of
waste plastic bottle strips as reinforcing materials
with other types of soils need further tests and
research.
2. The type of plastic used is PET (Polyethylene
Terephthalate). If other types of plastics such as
LDPE, HDPE or combinations of them are used,
then the quantum of improvement of different soil
parameters (i.e. MDU, OMC, cohesion, angle of
internal friction and CBR) would be different.
Further tests are needed to exactly quantify their
effects on soil improvement.
3. The tests are carried out on small scale. In order to
assess the behaviors of plastic strips as reinforcing
materials for soil improvement, large scale tests
are needed.
4. Further tests are needed to quantify the cost
reduction due to use of waste plastic bottle strips
as reinforcing materials in soil improvement.
5. Final behavior of silty sand with plastic strips still
need to be explored and various other tests such as
permeability, consolidation and triaxial tests need
to be performed to study the behavior of plastic
reinforced silty sand type soil.
123

6. In the present work, the mixing of plastic strips
was done uniformly. If the plastic strips are added
using definitive patterns (i.e. horizontally in
layers, vertical layers, inclined manner), then
further tests would be required to quantify the
results.
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