Waste Plastic and Rubber in Concrete and Cement Mortar: A Tertiary Literature Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Thank you for the time you dedicated to reviewing the paper and for the valuable advice you provided to improve its quality.

Below each of your reviews we have reported a short answer. All changes are presented in the paper in red colour.

 

• Page 2, line 51 and 76; page 7, line 190 and 196; page 8, line 216; page 9, line 222 and 225; page 10, line 239; page 14, line 289 – at all these places you can find „Error! Reference source not found“Please correct it.

 All references to Figures have been corrupted. Now the problem is fixed.

 

• Page 2, line 60: …waste materials, plastic … should be plastics

Corrected.

 

• Page 3, figure 2 (upper): You have there PP&A – please explain.

It stands for PPA, the figure is taken from United Nations: Baseline report on plastic waste. Plast. Waste Backgr. Rep. (2020).

 

• Page 4, line 99 – 101: I don´t understand, what is difference between polyethylene (PE) and high-density and low-density polyethylene. So in the list of most used plastics should be only one possibility.

The sentence has been modified leaving the indication of both LDPE and HDPE.

 

• Page 4, line 107, 108: I think rubber is not thermoplastic.

Corrected with “elastomers”.

 

• Page 4, line 113 and 114: When you write about rubbers, you can´t call some dust from them microplastics. You can call it rubber dust or microrubber, but no microplastics. I know, that many researchers call it microplastics, but it is wrong name. And this publication is review, so you should have it right!

Fixed.

 

• Page 6, table 1, part D: In group B is no mention about rubber? The name of the manuscript contain rubber. I think in keywords should be rubber.

Rubber, and so tyres, where included under the waste recycling keyword.

 

• Page 6, table 1, part E: Last column should be i.

Corrected.

• Page 9, line 227: … the total plastic waste … I tis only about plastics? Or also about rubbers?

It is only about plastics.

 

• Page 10, line 247 and 253: you write about rubber and tyres. Tyres are also rubbers, so you mean Tyres and other rubber goods?

Corrected, we refer to tyres and other rubber goods as you noticed.

• Page 11, table 5, third column: You write there also about rubber, so better name of this column will be Polymer types.

 Fixed.

 

• Page 13, table 5, line 30: In fourth column you have only and bottles.

Fixed.

 

• Page 15, figure 6: You have there Resistance acid … What it means?

Corrected. The Table was not full size, the characteristic is Resistance acid environment.

 

• Page 16, line 356: PF, what it is?

It stands for plastic fibers. The sentence has been rearranged.

 

• Page 17: please look on first and second paragraph. Please look on their style

Corrected.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is very interesting. It provides a structured review of the literature related to the use of plastic and rubber waste in mineral composites.  The only comment is that the file was not formatted carefully. There appear, for example, "error" - line 76 or incorrect spacing between lines of text - lines 419 - 439). Definitely the text needs to be corrected.

In summary, after adding editing corrections, the article can be posted in Sustainbility.

 

Author Response

 

Reviewer 2

Thank you for the time you dedicated to reviewing the paper and for the valuable advice you provided to improve its quality.

Below each of your reviews we have reported a short answer. All changes are presented in the paper in red colour.

The article is very interesting. It provides a structured review of the literature related to the use of plastic and rubber waste in mineral composites.  The only comment is that the file was not formatted carefully. There appear, for example, "error" - line 76 or incorrect spacing between lines of text - lines 419 - 439). Definitely the text needs to be corrected.

The text has been corrected according to your suggestions.

In summary, after adding editing corrections, the article can be posted in Sustainbility.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

The proposed review “Waste plastic and rubber in concrete and cement mortar: A tertiary literature review” submitted by Marinelli et al. is a tertiary study of previous relevant review articles dealing with the addition of polymeric waste materials in concrete and cement mortar mixtures.

 

 The review can be published after major revisions.

The main the major weaknesses of this review are :

-the review refers to reviews that are always older than at least two years, which in turn refer to previous articles

-the review is not well organized, even if there is a defined scheme starting  from the questions: A1. What is the state of the art of knowledge? A2. What are the most used plastic and rubber waste materials and the stated properties? A3. What are the current critical aspects and open issues? Actually, it seems that some parts are added and assembled. It should be better make the text more homogeneous and easy to read.

Moreover:

-        Too many graphic mistakes in the text  (ex. Lines.51-52. Error!51 Reference source not found. shows a list of possible waste materials used as alternatives in cement mixes).

-        Figure 1. No label and no explanation about the picture in the text.

-        Figure 2. No abbreviation explanation and data referring only until 2018.

-        Line 143. The most recent data are from 2019.

-        Lines 153-156. The questions are written twice (Table 1).

-        About question A1: What is the state of the art of knowledge? The answer about  the journal, country and year of selected reviews is too much reductive, in my opinion.

-        Lines 448-461: references in a different format

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Thank you for the time you dedicated to reviewing the paper and for the valuable advice you provided to improve its quality.

Below each of your reviews we have reported a short answer. All changes are presented in the paper in red colour.

The proposed review “Waste plastic and rubber in concrete and cement mortar: A tertiary literature review” submitted by Marinelli et al. is a tertiary study of previous relevant review articles dealing with the addition of polymeric waste materials in concrete and cement mortar mixtures.

 The review can be published after major revisions.

The main the major weaknesses of this review are :

-the review refers to reviews that are always older than at least two years, which in turn refer to previous articles

Thank you for your comment. As far as our knowledge goes we include most recent review available.

-the review is not well organized, even if there is a defined scheme starting  from the questions: A1. What is the state of the art of knowledge? A2. What are the most used plastic and rubber waste materials and the stated properties? A3. What are the current critical aspects and open issues? Actually, it seems that some parts are added and assembled. It should be better make the text more homogeneous and easy to read.

Thank you for your comment. We have tried to clarify review scheme in Table 1, point from A to E.

Moreover:

-        Too many graphic mistakes in the text  (ex. Lines.51-52. Error!51 Reference source not found. shows a list of possible waste materials used as alternatives in cement mixes).

-        Figure 1. No label and no explanation about the picture in the text.

-        Figure 2. No abbreviation explanation and data referring only until 2018.

-        Line 143. The most recent data are from 2019.

-        Lines 153-156. The questions are written twice (Table 1).

-        About question A1: What is the state of the art of knowledge? The answer about  the journal, country and year of selected reviews is too much reductive, in my opinion.

-        Lines 448-461: references in a different format

Thank you for your valuable comment. We fixed error in Texts. Regarding the answer for question A1 it covers all chapter 3.

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper provided an extensive review of waste plastic and rubber used in construction materials. The review paper is interesting and suitable for publication after considering several minor improvements suggested by this reviewer:

1.    All figures mentioned in the text might encounter errors, please revise them. E.x., lines 76, 190, etc.

2.   Section 1.1. It is suggested to combine sentences to reduce the number of paragraphs.

3.   Sections 1.1 and 1.2. It is suggested to provide a Fig. of waste plastic used in construction materials.

 

4.   Throughout the paper, a few of Figs. representing the discussion was provided. It is suggested that in subsections 3.5.1, 3.5.2, 3.5.3 and 3.5.4, please provide the new or reproduced Figs. of existing studies for better illustrating the disused issues.  

Author Response

This paper provided an extensive review of waste plastic and rubber used in construction materials. The review paper is interesting and suitable for publication after considering several minor improvements suggested by this reviewer:

Thank you for the time you dedicated to reviewing the paper and for the valuable advice you provided to improve its quality.

Below each of your reviews we have reported a short answer. All changes are presented in the paper in red colour.

 

1. All figures mentioned in the text might encounter errors, please revise them. E.x., lines 76, 190, etc.

Corrected.

 

2. Section 1.1. It is suggested to combine sentences to reduce the number of paragraphs.

Sentences in Section 1.1 have been rephrased.

3. Sections 1.1 and 1.2. It is suggested to provide a Fig. of waste plastic used in construction materials.

 We inserted a list of waste plastic used in construction materials in Section 1.2. However, Table 5 details type of polymers, waste source and application in construction materials.

4. Throughout the paper, a few of Figs. representing the discussion was provided. It is suggested that in subsections 3.5.1, 3.5.2, 3.5.3and 3.5.4, please provide the new or reproduced Figs. of existing studies for better illustrating the disused issues.  

Thank you for your comment. We inserted 6 Figures trying to minimize the re-use of existing images.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript can be published in the present form

Author Response

Thank you for your comments that help substantially in improving the paper quality.