Experimental Study of Bricks Prepared by Blending Clay with Cigarette Butts

In environment, various wastes are disposed-off without any suitable treatment which causes nuisance and may pollute the land or soil, water and air; cigarette butts(CBs) are one of them. Cigarette butts are basically a filter used while smoking, it is 30% of the total length of cigarette and made up with cellulose acetate, rayon and paper. CBs are largely produce and consumed by U.S.A., single handedly it produces 5.5 trillion cigarette butts in 2004 study and it is estimated to be increase by 40% in 2025. On large scale, CBs are majorly consumed by U.S.A., India, Australia, México, Brazil. CBs are basically a litter to the environment and poses serious environment risk. In this study, bricks manufactured using CBs has been manufactured and studied. Properties including water absorption, compressive strength, flexural strength, efflorescence, size and shape, hardness and soundness of clay bricks are reported and discussed. The result shows that density of bricks decreased approx. by 18% to 29% with varying percentage of cigarette butts incorporating in it .Compressive strength of bricks comes out as 8.34, 6.59, 5.07, 3.91 MPa for 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% CBs content respectively. Water absorption of such kind of bricks comes out in within the limits of 20%.