Landfill Space Research Articles

Development of a Waste Plastic Shredding Machine

Plastic is one of the most common used materials in the world today, but, they cause serious environmental pollution and exhaustion of landfill space. The recycling of waste plastic recovers the material, which can be used to make new plastic products such as containers, plastic lumbers and particle boards. For this to happen, the waste plastic will first be shred into small bits making it ready for transportation and further processing. This necessitated the development of a plastic shredder to recycle the waste plastic found in Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Ondo State, Nigeria environments. The shredder has the feeding unit, the shredding unit, power transmission unit and the machine frame. The performance of the machine was evaluated and test results showed that there was a correlation between the machine speed with a regression < 1 and there was a linear relationship with all variable parameters (The Shredding time (T), the Specific Mechanical Energy (SME), Throughput (TP) and Recovery Efficiency (RE)) and the variable operation speeds (1806.7 rpm, 1290.5 rpm and 1003.7 rpm). The throughput of the machine is 27.3 kg/hr and the efficiency is 53% for all type of plastic and 95% for Polyvinylchloride type of plastic. The machine is user friendly and the cost of producing one unit of the machine as at the time of fabrication was estimated to be One Hundred and Forty Thousand, Seven Hundred and Fifty Naira (N 140, 750:00k) only making it affordable to acquire for small and medium scale entrepreneurs in waste plastic recycling business

The Role of Sub-Saharan Africa Countries’ Households Waste Charges on Sustainable Cities Development

Most developing countries especially Sub-Sahara Africa often lacks financial resources to provide solid waste management in urban areas. Despite this, little has been done in the region to investigate the amount of income which can be collected from households to support provision of proper solid waste management. This paper estimated the amount which can be raised from households to support delivery of sustainable solid waste management. The study identified solid waste recovery alternatives which can help to turn the generated solid waste into useful resources. The findings revealed an estimate of about TZS 4, 555, 582, 529 (1 USD = 2140.65 TZS) can be collected per month from the households that can serve to purchase equipment including collection trucks and covering materials, as well as to pay for operational costs. The purchased solid waste equipment can collect and dispose up to 36% of the total solid waste generated by all households per day. Recycling of plastic, paper and metal scraps from households’ solid waste stream can transform about 25% of the total solid waste generated by households into useful products. Composting and bio fuels generation can convert 70.06% of the biodegradable waste such as food and garden wastes into useful products. Solid waste recovery alternatives have a great potential to turn waste into values thereby increasing the economic value of wastes, saving landfill space needed to dispose solid waste, encourage establishment of solid waste recovery industries or projects and create employment opportunities to people.

Optimal Disassembly Scheduling with a Genetic Algorithm

The growing amount of waste has caused severe environmental problems such as the shortage of landfill space and the high costs of waste disposal. Therefore, it is required to reuse and recycle the end-of-life products effectively from the viewpoint of economic efficiency. In this paper, we propose a disassembly scheduling method which uses a genetic algorithm to generate an optimal disassembly schedule including both the disassembly processes of multiple products and the post processes for reusing and recycling the disassembled parts for the minimization of the whole disassembly and post process times.

Development of Reverse Vending Machine (RVM) Framework for Implementation to a Standard Recycle Bin

Nowadays with the increasing amount of waste generated and limited landfill space for waste disposal, recycling is one of the important approaches to manage the waste effectively. The current manual recycling practice in which the user need to bring the waste in bulk to the recycling center might be hassle and hence become a discouraging factor for them to recycle. To overcome such an issue, in this project an automated recycle bin with a reward feature is proposed that derived from a reverse vending machine (RVM) concept. Basically, the system is implemented in a standard recycle bin provided by local municipal that equipped with microcontroller and collection of sensors. Throughout the process, the sensors responsible to identifying user information, weight the scale and eventually convert the weight to the corresponding points automatically. Once the process completed, the user can claim their points by using RFID point card. All the mentioned process will be controlled by a microcontroller. The system has been implemented in a small scale user testing and the framework shows its effectiveness for handling the whole process. The prototype is expected to aid in accelerating the motivation among Malaysian to recycle their waste, and can be one of the frameworks to overcome urban poverty issue by using waste to wealth concept.

Feedstock Recycling of Plastics Waste for Electricity or Fuel: An Exergy Approach

Waste plastics contribute to many environmental and social problems due to the loss of natural resources, environmental pollution, depletion of landfill space, and the various demands of an environmentally oriented society. The consumption of plastics waste increases annually, particularly in developing countries. Feedstock recycling of scrap polymers by thermal and chemical methods is well known and environmentally acceptable. However, new technologies for waste utilization as well as the methods that would enable an objective and broad assessment of these processes are strongly needed. Selecting the best method for thermal processing of waste polymers can be done based on a thermodynamic analysis of the process. In the paper, the process of thermal degradation of waste plastics (that is carried out in the new type of a tubular reactor with molten metal) is described and evaluated from the therodynamic poin of view. Depending on the final product (a fuel-like mixture or electricity), the calculated exergy efficiency of the proposed method ranged from 79% to 82%. These results mean that feedstock recycling of this type of waste by thermal degradation is a beneficial process from an energetic and ecological perspective as compared to other processes, particularly incineration.

Economic and Environmental Evaluation and Optimal Ratio of Natural and Recycled Aggregate Production

Steady increase in overexploitation of stone quarries, generation of construction and demolition waste, and costs of preparing extra landfill space have become environmental and waste management challenges in metropolises. In this paper, aggregate production is studied in two scenarios: scenario 1 representing the production of natural aggregates (NA) and scenario 2 representing the production of recycled aggregates (RA). This study consists of two parts. In the first part, the objective is the environmental assessment (energy consumption and CO2 emission) and economic (cost) evaluation of these two scenarios, which is pursued by life-cycle assessment (LCA) method. In the second part, the results of the first part are used to estimate the optimal combination of production of NA and RA and thereby find an optimal solution (scenario) for a more eco-friendly aggregate production. The defined formulas and relationship are used to develop a model. The results of model validation show that the optimal ratio, in optimal scenario, is 50%. The results show that, compared to scenario 1, optimal scenario improves the energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and production cost by, respectively, 30%, 36%, and 31%, which demonstrate the effectiveness of this optimization.

Beyond waste: new sustainable fillers from fly ashes stabilization, obtained by low cost raw materials.

A sustainable economy can be achieved only by assessing processes finalized to optimize the use of resources. Waste can be a relevant source of energy thanks to energy-from-waste processes. Concerns regarding the toxic fly ashes can be solved by transforming them into resource as recycled materials. The commitment to recycle is driven by the need to conserve natural resources, reduce imports of raw materials, save landfill space and reduce pollution. A new method to stabilize fly ash from Municipal Solid Waste Incinerator (MSWI) at room temperature has been developed thanks to COSMOS-RICE LIFE+ project (www.cosmos-rice.csmt.eu). This process is based on a chemical reaction that occurs properly mixing three waste fly ashes with rice husk ash, an agricultural by-product. COSMOS inert can replace critical raw materials (i.e. silica, fluorspar, clays, bentonite, antimony and alumina) as filler. Moreover the materials employed in the stabilization procedure may be not available in all areas. This paper investigates the possibility of substituting silica fume with corresponding condensed silica fume and to substitute flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) residues with low-cost calcium hydroxide powder. The removal of coal fly ash was also considered. The results will be presented and a possible substitution of the materials to stabilize fly ash will be discussed.

Treatment of blast furnace sludge (BFS) using a microwave heating technique

Recycling industrial waste saves landfill space, conserves resources and minimises its environmental impact. Recently, a great deal of attention has been paid to the microwave heating process as an alternative recycling method. The present study aims to investigate the use of microwave energy as a heat source for the treatment of blast furnace sludge (BFS). BFS is treated directly with microwaves, without the addition of a reducing agent. BFS contains carbon (its Fe/C ratio is approximately one), which functions as a self-reducing agent. The original BFS sample and the products of its carbothermic reduction by microwave heating are characterised using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimeter, Fourier transform infrared and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It is found that, after microwave treatment, the haematite is completely reduced to metallic iron with some wustite. The findings of this study indicate that microwave heating can be used to process and recycle BFS generated by iron-making processes.

Controlled Low-Strength Materials Using Bagasse Ash and Fly Ash

An increase in industrial and construction activities has resulted in the generation of wastes that consume large volumes of landfill spaces. Controlled low-strength materials (CLSMs) are an obvious choice for reuse of large quantities of these waste materials. This paper examines the fresh and hardened properties of CLSM mixtures produced using wastes such as bagasse ash and fly ash as pozzolanic materials, and broken hollow concrete blocks and quarry dust as fine aggregates. Engineering properties such as spread flow, Marsh flow, compressive strength, settlement, and density were investigated. Flow and strength phenomenological models were generated. The predicted values were also compared with Lagrange’s interpolation values and a new set of experimental data. Results indicate that phenomenological models encourage the production of CLSM of required parameters instead of a conventional trial-and-error process. The use of fly ash, bagasse ash, and quarry dust in large quantities increased water demand of the mixtures. Bagasse ash mixtures containing quarry dust resulted in lower strengths when compared to fly ash mixtures containing powdered hollow concrete blocks. All these wastes are encouraged to be reused in CLSM and, hence, reduce the burden on landfills.

Effects of Process Parameters and Recycled Slag on Flux Consumption in Submerged Arc Stainless Steel Cladding

Objective: Slag generated during submerged arc cladding is discarded as waste. It creates problems like environmental pollution, wastage of natural resources and need landfill space for its dumping. A technology for recycling of slag generated during submerged arc cladding of stainless steel was developed. In the present study the effects of process parameters and recycled slag on flux consumption has been studied. Methods/Analysis: The experiments were conducted using fractional factorial design with type of flux (fresh flux/recycled slag) as one of the controllable factors. Mathematical model for flux consumption was developed. Developed model was tested for its adequacy by F-test. The significance of the coefficients was tested by Student’s t-test. The results have been thoroughly analysed and presented graphically. The methodology for recycling the slag has also been discussed briefly. Findings: It was found that flux consumption increases with increase in open circuit voltage, decreases with increase in welding current and remains unaffected of travel speed. The results also proved that recycled slag does not produce any significant effects on the flux consumption. Novelty/Improvement: The work presented in this paper is essentially a novel technology developed by the authors originally. No work carried out by any other researcher on recycling of slag generated during stainless steel welding/cladding and its effects on flux consumption has been reported anywhere in literature.

A SHORT REVIEW ON USING CRUMB RUBBER AS MODIFICATION OF BITUMEN BINDER

The increasing consumption of waste tire has generated many problems such as increasing landfill space, environmental pollution and causing health hazards. Parallel to this is the increasing of roads construction as a result of heavy traffic on roads. This study reviews to the use of crumb rubber (waste tires in powder form) in bitumen using the wet process. The study focuses on the crumb rubber as a replacement to the total weight of bitumen. The design or life span for all highways and urban roads is 10 – 20 years. Unfortunately, damages or distresses on pavements are still occurring before reaching the maximum period of the designed road serviceability. Among the major influencing factor that is contributing to this distress is the repeated heavy traffic loading on the road surfaces. Moreover, the use of waste crumb rubber in road construction as a pavement surface has a better skid resistance, fatigue crack resistance and increased rut resistance. The review includes physical tests that are used to determine the physical properties of bitumen and modified crumb rubber mix. The physical tests involve penetration test, softening point test and viscosity test. The second stage is rheological tests like rolling thin film oven test (RTFOT), pressure aging vessel (PAV) and dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) tests. The expectations from the study are to develop bitumen with waste crumb rubber that would minimize the costs of bitumen and providing better physical and rheological properties compared to the convention bitumen based on the tests that was conducted. Crumb rubber modifier as improved resistance to rutting due to high viscosity, Improved resistance to surface initiated, reduce fatigue/ reflection cracking, lower pavement maintenance costs, and saving in energy and natural resource.

Using change detection data to assess amount and composition of demolition waste from buildings in Vienna

Major waste streams in urban areas result from the demolition of buildings. In the case of lack of data on demolition waste generation at the municipal level, the quantity and composition of demolition wastes from buildings can be estimated by multiplying the volume of demolished buildings, which is taken from statistical data sets, by their material composition. However, statistical data sets about the number and thus total volume of buildings demolished are often incomplete. This paper presents an alternative approach to validating demolition statistics (number and volume of buildings demolished) and subsequently demolition waste generation by applying change detection based on image matching to the case study of the city of Vienna, Austria. Based on this technique, building demolition activities not reported to statistical municipal departments can be identified. Results show that in the city of Vienna, demolition statistics yield a total volume of 1.7Mm3/a demolished building volume, while change detection based on image matching yields a total volume of 2.8Mm3/a. Consequently, demolition waste generation figures solely based on statistical data probably underestimate the total waste generation, which can have significant consequences for the estimation of landfill space and recycling plant capacity required. For this reason, the approach presented is not only a useful tool for validating existing data on demolition waste generation and demolition statistics, but can also be used when these data sets are not existent at all.

An agent based environmental impact assessment of building demolition waste management: Conventional versus green management

Waste materials generated from building demolition have become a great challenge to sustainable urban development due to its consumption of the limited landfill spaces, water pollution, energy consumption and harmful gas emissions. Proper management of demolition waste (DW) is a complex process and requires systematic thinking and analysis. Many methods have been proposed to study the environmental impact assessment of demolition waste management (DWM). However, it is found that the currently available studies pay little attention from the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) to consider the attitude and interaction of the heterogeneous stakeholders as well as the importance of green DWM which has a great influence on the effectiveness of DW management. The aim of this research is to simulate and explore how the change of attitude and the dynamic interaction among heterogeneous stakeholders can influence the environmental performance of DWM. To achieve this aim, a model for evaluating the environmental impact of DWM was developed by using an agent-based modeling (ABM) approach. The main factors considered in the model are the ratio of green deconstruction (i.e., building deconstruction) managers vs. conventional demolition (i.e. building destruction) managers, the ratio of green design managers (i.e. design for deconstruction) vs. conventional design managers, and the interaction behavior of heterogeneous stakeholders following the herd theory. In the model, the environmental impact assessment was quantified into four categories i.e. land resources, water resources, air resource and energy resources. The proposed model is demonstrated by using the data drawn from the Chinese construction industry. The results reveal that if the deconstruction method and the deconstruction oriented design are widely adopted by architects and engineers, the negative environmental impacts generated by DW can be reduced by at least 50%. Furthermore, the results provide valuable information for government departments to make decisions on how to improve environmental performance of DWM.

Emerging Waste-to-Energy Technologies: Solid Waste Solution or Dead End?

Incineration is a dirty word in the United States, at least where trash is involved. We’ve been burning municipal solid waste (MSW) since the 1880s. But the dawning of the environmental movement eight decades later cast new light on the nitrous oxides, dioxins, and other chemicals emitted from as many as 600 mass-burn incinerators nationwide, which meanwhile had also grown in size. 1 , 2 The ecological merits of resource conservation and recycling became another area of growing interest. Three emerging thermal waste-to-energy technologies seek to turn municipal solid waste from a burden to an asset. Adherents of these technologies say they produce fewer toxic emissions and virtually eliminate landfilling. But none of the technologies ... Now three new approaches to converting trash into energy—so-called waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies—look to leave mass-burn incineration behind by transforming how we think about MSW in the United States. Adherents of these emerging approaches—gasification, plasma gasification, and pyrolysis—promise cleaner emissions and more flexibility in terms of energy output, plus in some cases the virtual elimination of landfilling through a complex two-stage treatment process. 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 But none of the technologies have yet been proven on a commercial scale on U.S. soil using a typical mixed MSW feedstock, says Monica Wilson, program director for the advocacy group Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). After years of delays and high-profile failures, the technologies remain stymied by challenges such as operational inexperience, high costs, lack of financing, and concerns about toxic emissions. Furthermore, the heterogeneous nature of MSW can make it a problematic feedstock for power plants, and some critics believe it is more important to assess what materials are actually in MSW and the best uses associated with each of those materials—for instance, recycling, composting, reducing, or redesigning the materials before they enter the waste stream. Negative public perception of incineration also could prevent acceptance of newer WTE technologies in the United States. Modern mass-burn facilities are a huge improvement over the dirty plants that first drew public outrage. Beginning with the Clean Air Act in 1970, tightened regulations and sophisticated air pollution controls significantly reduced the levels of harmful chemicals emitted by incinerators. Today, 70 mass-burn plants in 21 states 8 consume about 13% of the nation’s trash, down from a peak of 14.5% in 1990. 9 , 10 Cumulatively they offer roughly 2.5 gigawatts of power in return, 11 , 12 less than a tenth of what the U.S. solar industry produces. 13 The most recent inventory available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shows that MSW incinerators released about 1% of the quantity of carcinogenic and highly toxic dioxin-like compounds in 2000 that they did just 13 years earlier. 14 Yet by the 1980s the damage to incineration’s reputation was done, as far as many environmental groups and the public at large were concerned. And the battle lines drawn all those years ago remain largely intact today. So claims that these new technologies offer a panacea to waste management and a source of clean, renewable energy have met with skepticism and organized opposition in dozens of communities nationwide faced with proposals in recent years. 15 Ultimately, if the new technologies are to take hold in this country, developers must find a way to not only support their performance claims, but also demonstrate compatibility with established recycling and composting efforts and achieve financial feasibility in areas experiencing no shortage of landfill space. 16 Even some proponents of the new technologies wonder if that will ever happen.

Refuse recovered biomass fuel from municipal solid waste. A life cycle assessment

Waste disposal is a controversial issue in many European countries: concerns about potential health effects and land value loss as well as the fulfillment of the European Landfill Directive and Waste Framework Directive have significantly changed the way waste should be managed. An appropriate management of municipal solid waste (MSW) may allow a significant enhancement of efficiency in resources use, by recovering both energy and materials from waste, otherwise landfilled, thus replacing fossil fuels and virgin materials with renewable sources. Separation and recovery of the biodegradable fraction of municipal solid waste is encouraged as a mean to produce bioenergy. Therefore, if not source segregated, innovative waste refining technologies may provide potential solutions for separation of organic fraction and improved energy and materials recovery.This paper presents a comprehensive system study of a recently developed technology aimed to improve the MSW management in order to decrease the demand for new landfill space and, at the same time, contribute to the urban energy needs. As part of a wider Life Plus Project entitled MARSS (Material Advanced Recovery Sustainable Systems), funded by European Community in 2012, the environmental assessment of an innovative and enhanced mechanical and biological treatment (MBT) demo plant installed in Mertesdorf (Germany) was performed by means of the SimaPro 8.0.5 LCA software, utilizing ReCiPe (H) Midpoint method for the impact assessment. The plant under study is designed to concentrate the biodegradable part of MSW in the <40mm fraction, through a series of refining and recovery steps, to remove contaminants and obtain a suitable biomass fuel with a final marketable quality fulfilling the requirements for biomass power plants to generate urban decentralized production of heat and power (CHP). This study aims at understanding if and to what extent the MBT-MARSS plant is environmentally sound, by investigating environmental costs and benefits of replacing MSW landfilling and waste-to-energy disposal by means of boosted separation of biomass for energy generation in CHPs and other recoverable fractions (metals, plastic). Steps and/or components that can be further improved are also assessed. Sensitivity of impacts to assumptions regarding the source of replaced electricity was also tested. Results not only emphasize the novelty of a promising new technology, but also the extent of benefits that can be achieved depending on the actual power generation technique that is replaced by means of the energy recovered in the process. The quantitative evaluation of the MARSS technology shows that appropriate design and management of the MBT plant lead to substantial reduction of environmental impacts as well as material and energy resource savings, thus putting forward a technical solution suitable for those cities/countries where other solutions are still lacking or inappropriate or unfeasible.

EFFECTS OF ALTERNATIVE AGGREGATES ON CONCRETE STRENGTH

Worldwide, large quantities of solid waste are generated by construction and demolition (C&amp;D) activities and the car industry. At the same time, the availability of landfill space is diminishing, and most industrialized nations are actively promoting recycling procedures to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. Governments have also set up regulatory bodies to provide standards and protocols for these procedures. Environmental benefits and reduced concrete production costs are some of the advantages of using recycled materials. Given these worldwide trends, it is essential to consider recycling some of the solid waste from the construction industry and used tires from the car industry to supplement natural aggregates in the production of concrete for the construction industry. This papers discusses the on-going research at La Trobe University on the use of recycled aggregates such as crushed concrete, crushed brick and rubber chips in the production of concrete. The effects of partial or total replacement of normal-weight aggregates with recycled aggregates on the strength of concrete were investigated. Different types and proportions of aggregate replacements were studied to establish which protocols provided the best options. It was found that concrete mixes produced with recycled aggregates produced acceptable concrete with reduced production costs.

Strength and Stiffness Properties of Green Lightweight Fill Mixtures

Approximately 250 million tires are discarded each year in the United States and 20 million in Canada. Finding sustainable ways to dispose these tires continues to be a problem throughout the world not only in North America. Disposal issues along with a continuing increase in tire production have resulted in an increase in tire stockpiles, 30 % of these tires end up occupying valuable landfill space. Tire Derived Aggregates (TDA) made from scrap tires have a compacted dry unit weight of 6.9 kN/m3 and a specific gravity of 1.06 making their use as lightweight fill material especially for highway embankments over soft soils very advantageous. Using TDA as fill material not only provide a new construction material but also help to provide sustainable solution for several environmental and economic problems. Previous studies have shown that the addition of Tire Derived Aggregates (TDA) to sand results in a fill material which is characterized by its higher shear strength compared to that of 100 % sand. While there have been several studies investigating various properties and situations involving TDA’s, there remain areas that still require exploration. The effect of soil/aggregate gradation on shear strength is one of particular interest. All of the research conducted to date investigated only the sand gradation mixed with uniform TDA gradation. None of the conducted research investigated the interaction between the gradation of the two materials and its effect on the performance of the fill mixture. The main goal of this paper is to gain an understanding of this interaction in aim of producing better fill mixtures with enhanced characteristics.

Eco-friendly Use of Granite Fines Waste in Building Blocks

India is endowed with one of the best granite deposits in the world and accounts for over 20% of world's resource in granite. Granite fines are waste produced in granite factories while cutting granite rocks to the desired shapes and also in polishing granite slabs. Disposal of this granite fines has become a major problem. Random disposal of the granite fines would lead to health hazard and disposal in landfill will decrease the life of landfill. Worldwide consumption of sand as fine aggregate in concrete production is very high and several developing countries have encountered some strain in the supply of natural sand in order to meet the increasing needs of infrastructural development in recent years. Over extraction of sand from river changes the river characteristics and effects on environment and biodiversity. A Situation that is responsible for increase in the price of sand and the cost of concrete. Expensive and scarcity of river sand which is one of the constituent material used in the production of conventional concrete was reported in India.The present study suggests that incorporation of granite fines in building blocks as a replacement to fine aggregates and compare favorably with that of conventional used building materials. Study also suggest using granite fines at optimum percentage of replacement of fine aggregates will not only save large quantity of natural sand but will also reduce the pollution created due to the disposal of this granite fines.Due to scarcity and ever increasing cost of landfill space and awareness about environment, by-product utilization like granite fines becomes an effective alternative for waste disposal. This gives a new solution for sustainable development, avoiding environmental degradation. In this context, the study aims at effective utilization of granite fines in producing different building blocks such as Mardini pressed soil blocks, Adobe blocks and Concrete blocks etc.

Biomass (yard waste) Suspensions as Alternative Daily Cover Material for Landfills

Biomass makes up approximately 16% of the landfills (this number can vary significantly depending upon the geographical location and time of the year). A majority of the biomass disposed in landfills is comprised of yard waste including grass and leaf clippings. This is becoming a problem as most landfills are running out of space and it is expensive to build new landfills. Twenty-four states have prohibited the disposal of yard waste in landfills with more states likely to follow suit. To conserve landfill space it is important to identify processes and methods for effective utilization and disposal of yard waste. It has been shown in this research that conformal coating of a biomass suspension can be utilized as an alternative daily cover (ADC) for the landfills. The biomass is ground into fine particles (d ≤ 2 mm) and suspended in a surfactant solution. This approach can reduce the cost of daily operations for the landfill and provide a solution to the problem of yard waste disposal.

Physical and mechanical properties of cementitious composites containing recycled glass powder (RGP) and styrene butadiene rubber (SBR)

Substantial amount of glass wastes are being generated all around the world. In most cases, they end up in the landfill without considering recycling option. Since it is an inert material, they occupy the landfill space for considerable amount of time unless there is a potential for recycling. Such glass wastes in the crushed form have a good potential in the infrastructure industry. In this research we investigate the possibility of utilizing recycled glass powder (RGP) in along with supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), such as fly ash (FA) and silica fume (SF) as partial replacements of cement. The physical and mechanical properties of fresh and hardened cement mortar with such combinations are investigated. In order to improve the physical and mechanical properties of hardened mortar, styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) was also added in the mortar mix. The result shows that the addition of fine RGP, FA and SF significantly improved the bond between the SBR and cement matrix which leads to an increase in the compressive and flexural strengths. Moreover, the addition of RGP, SF and FA considerably reduced the alkali silica reaction (ASR) expansions, percentage of water absorption, and the rate of water absorption than those of the control mix. This study shows that the RGP can be successfully utilized as an effective mineral admixture in cement mortar with 25% optimal replacement of cement.