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On 13th May, China initiated “No-waste City” Pilot Construction [1] program. One week ago, the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) issued the Compilation Guidance to Implementation Scheme and the Indicator System (Trail) [2] for the program, and urged local governments to detail specific implementation schemes. The list of pilot cities [3] was released on 5th May, including 11 pilot cities and 5 special zones. The special zones are representatives of five different administrative divisions.
Category | City | Province |
Pilot Cities | Shenzhen | Guangdong |
Baotou | Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region | |
Tongling | Anhui | |
Weihai | Shandong | |
Chongqing (main city) | ||
Shaoxing | Zhejiang | |
Sanya | Hainan | |
Xuchang | Henan | |
Xuzhou | Jiangsu | |
Panjin | Liaoning | |
Xining | Qinghai | |
Special Zones | Xiongan New Area | |
Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area | ||
Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city | ||
Guangze (county) | Fujian | |
Ruijin (county-level city) | Jiangxi | |
Table 1. List of pilot cities and special zones.
Four months ago, China State Council issued a notice [4] on the “No-wasted city” pilot construction program, which introduced the tasks and steps of the program (Chemlinked News [5]). At the MEE March Regular Press Conference [6], the program was mentioned as one of two major reforms of China’s solid waste and chemical management plan in 2019 (Chemlinked News [7]). “No-waste City” [8] is an advanced philosophy in urban management, which entails an overriding goal to minimize the environmental impact of solid waste. Based on the experience of pilot construction program, China wants to develop standardized metrics and develop a model that can be replicated and rolled out nationally.
Industry plays an important role in the program, and will be strictly regulated and expected to meet specific endpoints through assessment with defined quantitative indicators on solid waste collection, storage, utilization and disposal. Accordingly, the Indicator System for “No-waste City” Pilot Construction is designed on the basis of four tasks “Reduction, Process Control, Recycle and Eliminate Storage”. The system initially provides 22 mandatory indicators and 37 optional indicators for pilot cities, involving industry, agriculture, municipal and regulatory authorities. For chemical industry important indicators are:
Industrial solid waste production intensity
General industrial solid waste comprehensive utilization rate
Industrial hazardous waste safe disposal
General industrial solid waste storage and disposal
Working towards these goals will have a significant impact on the industry and will influence numerous aspects including raw material collection and final disposal of waste. In addition to the above, there are other indicators in the system that may affect the chemical industry, such as the use of pesticides and fertilizers, the recovery rate of agricultural mulch and the proportion of express green packaging. More information can be found on relevant government websites or on Chemlinked.
