It is difficult to reuse the construction sludge directly because the water content of it is extremely high. Therefore, it has been disposed as industrial waste in the final disposal site. In order to reduce the construction cost and environmental load, the effective reuse of construction sludge has been an important problem. In order to increase the recycling rate of construction sludge and to solve the above mentioned problem, the authors have already developed a new recycling method for construction sludge by using paper debris and cement. As this method can improve the high water content sludge into high quality ground materials on sites, this method has already been utilized in over 400 construction sites in Japan.
On the other hand, the biodegradation of fibrous materials is not made clear as yet. It is considered qualitatively that fibrous materials used in this method is hard to be biodegraded by soil microbes, because fibrous materials still remains in the soil which was improved by this method 10 years ago. However, the degradation by soil microbes is not confirmed quantitatively.
Therefore, the biodegradability of fibrous materials was investigated experimentally through a culture test and a soil buried test. As a result, it was found that paper fragments were degraded in the solution of pH7.0, but were not degraded in the solution of pH9.5. Furthermore, it was confirmed through soil buried test that paper fragments buried in the normal mud were degraded significantly, but those buried in Fiber-Cement-Stabilized soils were not degraded and fibrous materials remained. Therefore, it was concluded that the fibrous materials in Fiber-Cement-Stabilized soil are not degraded by soil microbes when pH of Fiber-Cement-Stabilized soil is over 9.5, and they remains in the modified soils for a long time.
