China adds over 3,000 new waste treatment facilities

China has added more than 3,100 solid waste treatment facilities under its zero-waste city program during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, greatly improving waste governance capacity, a senior environmental official said on Sept 22.

The new facilities, built in 113 cities at and above prefecture level and eight other regions, have added about 1 billion metric tons of annual treatment capacity, Zhong Bin, director-general of the Department of Solid Waste and Chemicals at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said.

Speaking at a news conference, Zhong said the zero-waste city program has made positive progress, especially in addressing weak links in solid waste treatment capacity.

In the field of bulk industrial solid waste, participating cities have explored large-scale utilization pathways. In Erdos, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, coal gangue has been used for ecological restoration and land reclamation in mining subsidence areas. The city's comprehensive utilization rate of coal gangue rose from 47 percent in 2020 to 96 percent in 2025.

For hazardous waste, local authorities have worked to reduce reliance on landfill disposal. In Ningbo, Zhejiang province, the city planned 23 hazardous waste utilization facilities in a systematic manner, helping cut the amount of hazardous waste sent to landfill in 2025 by 58 percent compared with 2024.

Cities have also moved to close treatment capacity gaps for sludge from urban sewage treatment plants. Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, has built a coordinated treatment project using industrial kilns, and the city has basically achieved harmless disposal of sludge.

In construction waste management, Kunming, Yunnan province, has used abandoned mine ecological restoration and land reclamation projects to absorb construction waste, building 65 disposal and utilization sites.