Substitution of marble wastes in different size ranges as road base material

The waste materials increase as a result of the expanding human needs associated with population growth and technological and industrial advances. These waste by-products bring about some undesirable environmental impacts. This necessitates the recycling or the usage of them for different purposes. The waste materials are produced as a result of industrial activity and their amounts reach millions of tons per year. It is, therefore, crucial to use these materials as raw material in different industrial sectors and to reduce the coast by waste disposal. The construction sector is one of the sectors with the highest raw material consumption. The construction sector struggles to reduce the building expenses, energy consumption, and raw material usage to a minimum. The most consumed raw material is aggregate in this sector with high raw material usage. The flexible top layers of roads are important in the construction sector and approximately 95% of the material used in these layers is aggregate. The aggregate used in construction is provided from either aggregate mines or natural aggregate sources. The need for new aggregate mines gradually increases due to the increase in road constructions in the world and in our country. As a consequence of the increasing need for aggregate mines, the Earth's crust is deformed from place to place. The waste material usage in road construction in need of bulk material prevents the fast consumption of limited natural sources in the world and is beneficial due to reductions in construction costs. In this direction, a study is conducted for the aim of substitution of marble wastes produced in the mines of Bilecik province as road base material in accordance with the Turkish Highway Specification (KTŞ). The laboratory experiments specified in the Turkish Highway Specification were conducted in this study. The experimental results show that marble waste in different size ranges can be substituted as road base material.