Variations of backfill load on the metal-polyethylene composite( MPC ) pipes buried in various trenches backfill afterward were investigated in this paper. The backfill loads obtained by the finite element method( FBM ) were compared with those calculated by the well-known MarstonBpangler(M-5) theory. The reliability of the finite element analysis used in this study was examined by an inaitu best for the buried pipe. The backfill lords and deflections on the real-size pipe buried on-site were measured while increasing the backfill height. In addition, further investigations were made for the variations of the backfill loads as a function of several important parameters such as the backfill soil type, bach. height$(leq4.0m)$, diameter of the pipe$(B.$1.0m)$, and trench width($leq 3.0 B_c$). It is confirmed that the M-S theory predicts reasonably well the backfill loafs of the MPC of the M-S backfill coils be 0.13 and 0.15 for the SC and SM coils in the D unman soil model, respectively. The load ratio, Wu-s/WwgM for a narrow trench varies negligibly with the back(111 height but fiends to increase for a wide trench. The ratio increases with increasing diameter of the pipe for a narrow trench while decreasing for a wide trench. It is also found that the ratio generally decreases as the degree of compaction increases and BM soil exhibits larger load ratio than that of SC soil.