Recycling waste packaging tape into bituminous mixtures towards enhanced mechanical properties and environmental benefits

The rapid development of online shopping and express delivery brings vast amount of waste packing tape (WPT). Recycling WPT as an asphalt performance-enhanced modifier may bring benefits in both environmental and engineering aspects. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of using WPT to improve the mechanical properties of asphalt mixtures. To this end, the hot and warm WPT mixtures were prepared and tested. The engineering performance including mixture workability, stiffness modulus, fatigue resistance, rutting resistance, moisture susceptibility, tensile strength and tensile failure strain were characterized. Moreover, the long-term service performance of the mixture was predicted using AASHTO Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design software. Based upon the results of laboratory experiments and simulation, it was found that the mechanical performance of WPT asphalt mixture including moisture sensitivity, rutting and fatigue resistance of WPT modified asphalt mixture was comparable to that of SBS asphalt mixture. The life-long service performance of WPT mixture was much superior to that of raw asphalt mixture. The warm mix asphalt additive, FT-wax, allowed the WPT asphalt mixture to be produced at same temperature to mixture with raw asphalt. Meanwhile, the mechanical properties of warm WPT were slightly better than those of hot WPT. Finally, this study proves that recycling waste packing tapes as asphalt modifier is a promising solution with both environmental and engineering merits. (C)2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.