Recycling of construction and demolition waste for producing new construction material (Brazil case-study)

• Low-cost bricks were manufactured using construction and demolition waste (CDW).
• Lime and cement used as binding agents mixed with CDW and water.
• The bricks present better technological properties than standards.
• The use of this waste reduce the raw materials demands and environmental impacts.

Construction and demolition waste corresponds to 50% of all urban solid waste, usually it is dumped in improper places. This work reuses this waste as substitute of natural aggregate to produce bricks. Lime and cement were used as binding agents and were pressed using a uniaxial hydraulic press. After 21 days curing were submitted to compression tests, the probes presented an average resistance greater than 4 MPa, which is higher than standards. Water absorption, apparent porosity and density were also determined. The results show that it is possible to produce low-cost bricks with excellent physical properties using CDW as aggregate and lime or cement as additive.