Design, Prototyping, and Testing of New Concrete Products Containing Recycled Glass

ADL Process Inc. is a privately-owned electronics recycling company in west end Toronto, at Keele & St. Clair. They have 25 employees and recently secured a provincial contract to dispose of 1 million kilograms of electronics waste per year. A large proportion of this waste is glass cathode ray tubes (CRTs). There are two types of glass found in CRTs: back plate glass containing lead that is recycled in a smelter and base plate optical glass (containing no lead), which they currently pay to dispose in land fill. ADL Process wants to find a way to recycle the base-plate glass into a construction material (e.g. concrete). ADL Process has identified a local company who they have commissioned to mill the CRT base plate glass into sand or powder. ADL Process would like to collaborate with George Brown College, CCET to identify the opportunities and feasibility to recycle the CRT base plate optical glass into a construction product (e.g. concrete). This project would involve: research into how glass is recycled and reused in other regions as building material; research into concrete formulation and how it would be impacted by the addition of recycled glass; production and mechanical testing of different concrete formulations containing recycled glass; analysis of how the concrete containing recycled glass could be used in construction based on performance; design, prototyping and testing of new products using concrete containing recycled glass. The Principal investigator for the project is Dr. Tulsi Regmi, Full-time Faculty with the Centre for Construction and Engineering Technologies at George Brown College, with expertise in sustainable construction & construction management.