Recently, the Provincial Beautiful Zhejiang Leading Group Office has issued the “Zhejiang Province-wide “Waste-Free City” Construction Plan (2022-2025)”. According to the plan, by 2025, all districted cities and 60% of the counties (cities, districts) will pass the assessment of a “waste-free city” in the whole region, and the construction of a global “waste-free city” will be at the forefront of the country.

The Plan takes waste reduction, recycling and harmless treatment as the main goals, and aims to enhance the ability of solid waste source treatment, comprehensive utilization and safe disposal. For example, in the field of general industrial solid waste, the province plans to achieve negative growth in production intensity by 2025, and at the same time build more than one national comprehensive utilization base of bulk solid waste. In the field of domestic waste and construction waste, the province aims to achieve zero growth of waste packaging in the logistics industry. The comprehensive utilization rate of construction waste will reach 90%, and solid waste dumps such as domestic waste landfills and stock construction waste dumps will be treated for safety.

In order to avoid secondary pollution, the solid waste collection and transportation system is very important. Next, the hazardous waste collection and transportation system in our province will cover all small and micro enterprises. The collection and transportation of general industrial solid waste, domestic waste and renewable resources will realize the “three networks integration”, and the unified collection and transportation system will cover all counties (cities, districts).

On the basis of the national plan, the Provincial Plan adds a number of indicators of Zhejiang characteristics. Especially in terms of digital reform, as the only pilot province for the digital reform of “Waste-Free Cities” in China, Zhejiang iterates the “Waste-Free City Online” application, deepens the research and application of “Waste-Free Index”, and provides experience for the modernization of the national solid waste governance capacity and governance system.

“Waste-free city” is an urban development model that continuously promotes the reduction and utilization of solid waste sources, minimizes the amount of landfill, and reduces environmental impact.

At the beginning of 2020, our province took the lead in the whole country in developing a “no-waste city”. In April this year, all districted cities were added into the list of “no-waste cities” during the national “14th Five-Year Plan” period.