Rapid industrialization and urbanization are pertinent to support gradually developing countries like india with inhabiting population of 1.3 billion with a growth rate of 1.2%. in this scenario, the construction industry has a major role to meet the ever increasing demand of providing the basic infrastructure for housing, roads, water supply, medical facilities, educational institutions and industries. a downside to this socio-economic expansion is the large quantities of construction and demolition (c&d) wastes generated, which accounts for nearly 25-30 million tonnes annually as per the ministry of urban development (moud). this c&d debris consists of approximately 23%-35% waste concrete (approximately 48% from demolition activity, 44% from renovation and 8% from new construction), which, if properly collected and recycled with a little technical input, around 1.8 million tonnes of recycled aggregate can be generated annually in india and the deficit in the availability and supply of qualified natural aggregate for construction can be overcome. this would not only reduce the amount of solid waste generated, but also decrease the carbon footprint of the material and can be an integral part of the swachh bharat mission. moreover, this sustainable, low cost and environment friendly alternative to conventional concrete can be indisputably used to serve the various ambitious developmental schemes launched by the government of india, like smart cities mission (urban planning and development), pradhan mantri gramin awaas yojana (rural housing development), kasturba gandhi balika vidyalaya (construction of educational facilities, residential schools), deen dayal upadhyaya gram jyoti yojana (development of basic infrastructure for rural electrification), pradhan mantri gram sadak yojana (construction and rehabilitation of concrete pavements), rajiv awas yojana (development of basic infrastructure in rural sector to replace slums), mahatma gandhi national rural employment guarantee act (rural employment during construction), pradhan mantri kaushal vikas yojna (skill training at construction site). the aggregate yielded by crushing the c&d debris be in the form of crushed concrete, crushed brick or broken glass pieces is known as recycled aggregate (ra) and the concrete in which na is replaced partially or fully by ra is known as recycled aggregate concrete (rac). the adhered mortar layer and its quantity are the main reasons for ra having inferior physical and mechanical properties as compared to na. the increase in overall mortar content (adhered old mortar to rca + fresh mortar) in rac, further exacerbates its mechanical properties. in order to address these issues, a novel particle packing method (ppm) of design mix is proposed to prepare rac with the objective of determining the proportion of coarse aggregate and fine aggregate mixture to obtain the maximum packing density. the increase in packing density leads to the minimization of voids which reduces the requirement of binder and water, eventually the mechanical properties; such as compressive strength, tensile strength and modulus of elasticity are improved in comparison to the conventional mix design approach. the significant effect of the ppm design mix was observed in tensile strength parameter. for m30 grade of concrete, an increment of approximately 6% and 24% was witnessed in split tensile strength and flexural tensile strength, respectively. further, the mechanical properties of rac, prepared using the ppm design mix are at par with the conventional concrete, prepared using is code (is: 10262 (2009)) method. in addition, the requirement of lesser quantity of cement and water is another highlighting characteristic of making it economical and sustainable than the conventional method. the material inferiority of rca was successfully overcome by employing the ppm design mix. the ppm design mix enables the 100% use of rca to prepare rac without compromising on the performance parameters. a balance must be maintained between development of the society and maintaining the integrity of the environment. so, effective use of environmental friendly, sustainable materials, especially recycled materials should be encouraged.