Glass waste used in mortars or concretes behaves similar to cement, with resulting environmental benefits. In this light, the behavior of glass powder of various particle sizes has been analyzed as a cement replacement in mortars, in an attempt to minimize the loss of strength and durability, and maximize the amount of materials replaced. The dry density, water accessible porosity, water absorption by immersion, capillary absorption coefficient, ultrasonic pulse velocity and both compressive and flexural strengths were studied in the mortars. Furthermore, a statistical analysis of the obtained results and a greenhouse gases assessment were also performed. In view of the results obtained, glass powder of 38 microns allows up to 30% of the cement to be replaced, due to the filler effect combined with its pozzolanic activity. Moreover, it has been observed that glass powder size is one of the factors with the greatest influence among the properties of porosity, absorption and capillarity. On the other hand, in the mechanical properties, this factor does not contribute significantly more than the amount of glass powder. Finally, the greenhouse gasses analysis shows that the incorporation of glass powder reduces the CO₂ emissions associated with mortar up to 29.47%.

At present, reducing the environmental impact of the construction industry is a major subject of study. In terms of the use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCA), most recently conducted studies have shown that the use of a limited percentage of those aggregates does not significantly affect the properties of concretes. This work analysed the mechanical properties of medium-strength concretes with a high contribution to sustainability, where cement and natural coarse aggregates (NCA) were partially replaced by volcanic powder (VP) and RCA, respectively. Three mixing ratios of VP replacement were tested in concretes without RCA and concretes with 30% RCA replacing NCA. Results show that when VP is used without RCA, up to 10% of the cement can be replaced by VP without a significant loss in the mechanical properties. When a combination of 5% VP and 30% RCA is used, the weakness of the recycled concrete is strengthened, obtaining stronger concretes than a control concrete with no recycled materials. Finally, the greenhouse gas assessment showed that the simultaneous incorporation of VP and RCA reduces CO₂ emissions produced in the manufacture of concrete by up to 13.6%.

Currently, reduction of environmental effects of the cement industry is an issue of global interest and one of the alternatives is to replace clinker with additions such as volcanic powder. The purpose of this work is to study the influence of up to 400 hardening days of volcanic powder, obtained from the last eruption of the Calbuco volcano (Chile), on the pore structure, mechanical performance, and durability-related properties of mortars which incorporate up to 20% volcanic powder as a substitution for clinker. In addition, an evaluation of greenhouse gases emissions was performed in order to quantify the possible environmental benefits of incorporating the volcanic powder in the mortars. The results obtained indicated that mortars with contents of 10% and 20% of volcanic powder had adequate service properties and improved all durability-related properties overall as compared with those noted for ordinary Portland cement. Additionally, the use of up to 20% volcanic powder makes it possible to reduce the CO₂ emissions of mortars by almost 20%, demonstrating the advantages of incorporating this addition in mortars.