Recycling EVA from Footwear Industry as Aggregates for Cement Mortar

Abstract

This paper reports the development of a new cementitious mortar using an ethyl-vinyl acetate (EVA) waste product from the footwear industry. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the influence of the replacement of part of the silica aggregates by EVA on the properties of the recycled mortar, namely the density, slump-flow, flexural strength and compressive strength. The study included three incorporations of EVA with granulometries in the millimetric and micrometric ranges. The results proved that the increase of the EVA content leads to a significant strength decrease, which is attenuated in the case of the micrometric EVA incorporation.