Designing sustainable concrete to maximize the use of local waste materials: Mechanical, durability, and sustainability-based multicriteria analysis

Concrete is an essential element of the built environment, but, due to its substantial carbon impact, decarbonizing cement, concrete’s key ingredient, is critical for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Thus, it is inevitable to use different supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) in designing sustainable and durable concrete. At the same time, about 8 million tons of post-consumer glass are landfilled in the US each year, resulting in substantial resource depletion and associated CO 2 . This study investigates Portland limestone cement (PLC)-based high-volume ternary blended concretes in which ground glass powder (GGP) and ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) are used to replace up to 80% of the total PLC. The fresh concrete, mechanical, and durability properties, and environmental performance were examined. The findings demonstrated that all mixes met performance requirements (e.g., compressive strengths), though higher replacement levels increased setting time and slump values. However, substituting 80% PLC with 40% GGP and 40% GGBS substantially increased the surface resistivity (up to 13 times) and reduced environmental impacts across all five assessed categories, including a 62% reduction in global warming potential relative to the control. The blended mixtures showed markedly lower drying shrinkage and ASR expansion than the control one, while the mixture with 60% PLC replacement ranked first according to the multi-criteria analysis. The study concludes that combining GGP and GGBS offers a sustainable pathway to design concrete with GGP, ensure material circularity, and decarbonize the built environment.