GUWAHATI: A team led by Ajay Kalamdhad from the Department of Civil Engineering tested degraded MSW to fabricate the fired bricks in IIT Guwahati.
Degraded MSW collected from Boragaon landfill site, Guwahati was used for fabricating the bricks by using a mold.
The bricks obtained by mixing 20% degraded MSW with soil were found 20% lighter. Test results confirmed that fired bricks incorporated with 20 wt% of degraded MSW are safe to use and can be recycled after service life.
Fired bricks have long been used for the construction of buildings because of easy availability of the raw material.
However, brick making consumes a significant quantity of fertile agricultural soil and much of it comes at an expense of loss of fertile soil and land degradation.
With new advances in the construction, brick walls do not carry the structural load and therefore the performance requirements such as strength are not so stringent like before.
