Mason Sufnarski

As countries continue to grow and industrialize, the global demand for concrete has grown at an exponential rate. Correspondingly, the demand for sand- a primary component of concrete- has resulted in a global sand shortage, sending developing countries scrambling for its obtainment. The world is also facing another environmental obstacle: the overabundance of plastic. The pelleted form of plastic, or nurdles, is formed during the production of and recycling of plastic. Through transportation to manufacturers or leaks from factories, billions of nurdles make their way to the coasts every year. This causes an eyesore to the beaches and disrupts the biodiversity of marine ecosystems, causing some countries to initiate "nurdle patrols' ' for their collection. My experiment seeks to provide a solution to the sand shortage and overabundance of plastic through environmentally sustainable concrete. Concrete mortar cubes were made with partial replacement rates of 0 (control), 5, 10, and 15% replacement of sand with plastic nurdles. Each cube was tested at 7 and 28 days to determine the compressive strength in psi. The results were analyzed and compared, and I determined that the addition of plastic of up to 15% had little to no impact on the compressive strength. The results suggest that more tests need to be done to determine the rate at which the strength drops significantly; however, they suggest that partially replaced sand with plastic nurdles could be a viable solution to the global sand shortage and the overabundance of plastic.