Applying Circular Economy to Construction Industry through Use of Waste Materials: A Review of Supplementary Cementitious Materials, Plastics, and Ceramics

Due to constant growth of waste production, recent strategies in waste management such as circular economy promote the maximum life cycle use of materials. In construction industry where structures tend to last for decades, the use of such recycled materials can have numerous benefits including overall reduction in cost, in use of virgin materials, and in CO2 production as well as providing an opportunity for a tailored concrete with specific properties. Yet, because of the stereotypical and negative image of mechanical properties reduction, as a result of using waste materials, often their vast contribution in sustainability and durability properties are not taken into consideration. In this regard, we propose viewing waste materials as secondary raw materials that in certain regards, can provide a favorably tailored property. In this regard, the following review article first provides a short description of the most commonly used waste materials such as supplementary cementitious materials (fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, silica fume, metakaolin, rice husk ash, municipal solid waste ash, steel slag, copper slag), ceramics from construction and demolition (glass powder, brick and tile ceramic and porcelain), and the vastly available plastic materials (polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polyvinyl chloride, and rubber). Then, by reviewing a selected environmental impact (life cycle assessment), physicochemical, durability, and finally mechanical properties discuss the limitations, future projections of newer waste materials (e.g., agricultural waste) to be used and suggest potential future study in this area.