We must resolutely curb the growth momentum of solid waste and build a comprehensive solid waste management system. We will accelerate the improvement of the long-term mechanism for comprehensive management, enhance the level of resource utilization of solid waste, and leverage market forces to promote the development of a circular economy." The executive meeting of the State Council held on December 19, 2025, made arrangements for carrying out comprehensive solid waste management actions, marking that China's solid waste management has entered a new stage characterized by controlling the increase of solid waste through systematic governance, improving quality and efficiency through a full-chain mechanism, driving the circular economy through market and responsibility, prioritizing people's livelihood safety in governance, and supporting high-quality development through green transformation.
Since the Central Economic Work Conference at the end of 2024 identified "formulating an action plan for comprehensive management of solid waste" as one of the tasks for 2025, China's comprehensive management of solid waste has entered a fast track. The 2025 National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection held on January 14, 2025, listed "promoting the formulation of an action plan for comprehensive management of solid waste" as one of the key tasks of the year; the National Two Sessions held in March 2025 mentioned that the government work tasks include "formulating an action plan for comprehensive management of solid waste"; in June 2025, with the approval of the State Council, eight departments including the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Natural Resources jointly launched a national special rectification campaign against illegal dumping and disposal of solid waste, planning to carry out concentrated rectification nationwide within about 3 years to curb the high incidence of illegal transfer, dumping and disposal of solid waste; subsequently, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, in cooperation with the National Development and Reform Commission, accelerated the formulation of an action plan for comprehensive management of solid waste and built a system for comprehensive management and recycling of solid waste; the Central Economic Work Conference held from December 11 to 12, 2025, once again clearly proposed that "implement the action for comprehensive management of solid waste, further advance the battles to defend the blue sky, clear waters, and clean soil, and strengthen the management of new pollutants." This conference not only put forward the tough goal of "resolutely curbing the growth momentum of solid waste" but also established the basic principles of "reduction, recycling, and harmlessness." The core logic of this strategic shift is that the issue of solid waste has upgraded from a purely environmental governance category to a comprehensive issue affecting resource security, the quality of economic development, and social public security.
Comprehensive management of solid waste has been elevated to a national strategy. The mining industry, as a major producer and provider of industrial bulk solid waste, generates about 30% of the total solid waste each year. How to shift from end-of-pipe disposal to an All-chain systematic tackling, build a long-term mechanism, improve the comprehensive utilization rate, and curb the growth momentum of solid waste has become a must-answer question for the mining industry and a key factor restricting the high-quality development of the industry," analyzed Du Genjie, President of the Executive Branch of Resource Comprehensive Utilization of the China Industrial Cooperation Association, who has been deeply engaged in the field of industrial solid waste comprehensive utilization for many years.
The total amount of solid waste is still increasing, with the mining industry being a major contributor.
China is a major producer of solid waste, generating over 11 billion tons of various types of solid waste each year.
According to data from the Industrial Solid Waste Network, in 2024, the national production of general industrial solid waste was 4.47 billion tons, hazardous waste was 130 million tons, domestic waste was 260 million tons, and agricultural solid waste was 2.4 billion tons. Among them, general industrial solid waste mainly comes from industries such as electricity and heat production and supply. The top five types in terms of production are tailings, fly ash, gangue, smelting slag and furnace slag.
It is obvious that among the more than 4 billion tons of industrial solid waste produced in China each year, industrial solid waste related to the mining industry accounts for the majority and has become the core target of industrial solid waste management. How to curb the growth momentum of industrial solid waste from the source has become a top priority.
It is worth noting that although China is a major mining country, metal mines generally have the "three more and three less" characteristics: more lean ores than rich ores, more small and medium-sized mines than large ones, and more associated low-grade refractory ores than single ores. As a result, the annual tailings discharge from metal mines is relatively large.
Relevant data shows that in 2024, there were 7,820 tailings ponds under environmental supervision, among which 76 were under level-1 environmental supervision, 2,109 under level-2 environmental supervision, and 5,635 under level-3 environmental supervision. The output of tailings exceeded 1.5 billion tons. In 2023, the total output of tailings in China was 1.424 billion tons, a year-on-year increase of 0.56%. Among them, iron tailings were about 617 million tons, accounting for 43.30%; copper tailings were about 366 million tons, accounting for 25.70%; gold tailings were about 185 million tons, accounting for 13.00%; other metal tailings were about 135 million tons, accounting for 9.50%; and non-metal tailings were about 121 million tons, accounting for 8.50%.
As the major component of metal mine tailings, the total amount of iron tailings generated in China has been relatively large in recent years," Du Genjie said. From a regional perspective, in 2023, Hebei Province, Liaoning Province, and Sichuan Province ranked among the top three in the country in terms of iron tailings production, with the combined output of the three provinces reaching 446.6719 million tons, accounting for 72.42% of the national tailings production. Among them, Hebei Province ranked first in the country with a production of 273.5505 million tons, accounting for 44.35%.
As the "ballast stone" of China's energy sector, the coal industry generates a significant amount of industrial solid waste each year. Relevant data shows that in 2022, the output of coal gangue in China was approximately 821 million tons, an increase of 58 million tons compared to the previous year. In 2023, the output of coal gangue in China was about 848 million tons. In 2024, China's raw coal output reached 4.76 billion tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.3%, hitting a record high, while the output of coal gangue reached 855 million tons.
If viewed from coal-producing provinces, the negative effects of coal gangue will be more prominent," said Du Genjie. It is reported that in 2022, the output of coal gangue in the top 6 coal-producing provinces in the country was 712.7167 million tons, accounting for 87.5% of the national total. The coal gangue from the four major coal-producing areas of Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Xinjiang accounted for 83.1% of the national total coal gangue output, with their respective proportions being 40.1%, 21.6%, 13.7% and 7.6%. In 2023, the number of provinces with raw coal output exceeding 100 million tons in the country reached 7, and the coal gangue output of these 7 provinces was 755.3231 million tons. The coal gangue from the major coal-producing areas of Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Xinjiang accounted for 90.5% of the national total coal gangue output, with their respective proportions being 40.6%, 21.8%, 13.7% and 8.2%.
Coal, which dominates China's primary energy sources, not only generates a large amount of industrial solid wastes such as gangue during the mining process, but also the industrial solid wastes such as fly ash produced during the consumption and application end are equally worthy of attention. The annual output of these solid wastes is about 700 to 800 million tons, slightly lower than the output of gangue.
In addition, the total amount of industrial solid waste (metallurgical slag, iron-containing dust and sludge) generated by China's steel industry is also relatively large, reaching 364 million tons in 2024," Du Genjie introduced. From 2022 to 2023, as industries such as electric power, metallurgy, and non-ferrous metal smelting continued to grow, the demand for flue gas desulfurization increased accordingly. The desulfurized gypsum generated by the electric power industry accounts for about 73% of the total desulfurized gypsum production. The amount of desulfurized gypsum generated by coal-fired power plants in 2022 and 2023 was 93.9652 million tons and 98.9010 million tons respectively, while that generated by other industries such as thermal power production and metallurgy was 34.7408 million tons and 35.9702 million tons respectively. The total national desulfurized gypsum production in 2022 and 2023 was 128.7195 million tons and 135.4808 million tons respectively.
Policy and technology work together, and the utilization of solid waste progresses "slowly and steadily
In Nan'an District of Chongqing, the newly put into operation Phase II project of Chongqing Zhidi Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. has turned industrial solid waste, demolition waste, engineering muck, engineering waste, engineering slurry, decoration waste, and even some metal waste residues and industrial hazardous waste into beneficial resources and treasures, transforming them into green building materials.
As the first core hub for resource recycling of industrial solid waste and construction waste in Southwest China, with the completion and commissioning of our company's Phase II project, our annual capacity to dispose of various types of solid waste will exceed 1 million tons, entering a new stage of large-scale, high-value, and full-chain development," said Zhang Xianyu, chairman of the company. The company has built a complete green industrial chain closed loop covering the front-end classification and collection, mid-end efficient disposal, and back-end market-oriented application of industrial solid waste and construction waste, realizing a fundamental transformation of industrial solid waste and construction waste from "disorderly dumping and filling" to "orderly recycling". It provides practical samples and replicable, promotable systematic solutions for the construction of "zero-waste cities" and "zero-waste mines" as well as the development of urban circular economy across the country.
Minben Group in Wuxue, Hubei Province, has joined forces with relevant central enterprises and scientific research institutions to tackle key problems, using waste mud from mines together with other industrial solid wastes for soil improvement. At present, the experimental field they have jointly built has successfully grown various crops, exploring a new path for the comprehensive utilization of various bulk industrial solid wastes, the comprehensive management and land reclamation of abandoned mining areas, and rural revitalization in the next step.
This is just a microcosm of the comprehensive utilization of bulk industrial solid waste in China in recent years.
It is understood that in recent years, supported by multiple favorable factors such as the incentive and support of various policies, the continuous breakthroughs in key core technologies, and the increasingly improved and mature comprehensive utilization modes of various industrial solid wastes, the comprehensive utilization level and total utilization volume of industrial solid wastes in China have increased year by year.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress revised the Environmental Protection Tax Law on October 26, 2018, proposing that taxable solid waste should determine the tax amount based on the emission volume of solid waste, and clarifying the environmental protection tax amounts for different types of solid waste. This forces enterprises to further promote the comprehensive utilization of solid waste." When talking about the incentive policies for the comprehensive utilization of solid waste introduced by the country in recent years, Du Genjie said with ease, stating that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period alone, relevant ministries and commissions such as the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment have issued more than 10 positive guidance industrial policies to encourage the comprehensive utilization of solid waste resources. Among them, there are many policy measures with strong guidance and high value, such as the Notice on Promoting the Agglomerated Development of the Comprehensive Utilization Industry of Bulk Solid Wastes, the Notice on Carrying out Demonstration of Comprehensive Utilization of Bulk Solid Wastes, the Guiding Opinions on the Comprehensive Utilization of Bulk Solid Wastes during the "14th Five-Year Plan" Period, and the Work Plan for the Construction of "Zero-Waste Cities" during the "14th Five-Year Plan" Period.
Moreover, the continuous innovation and breakthroughs in various comprehensive utilization technologies for mineral resources have enabled some industrial solid wastes that were previously difficult to comprehensively utilize to turn harm into benefit, waste into treasure, and even transform from "burdens" into "wealth".
It is understood that in recent years, with the dual impetus of ecological civilization construction and green high-quality development, China's mining industry has basically formed a green development system covering the entire industrial chain of mining, beneficiation, smelting and utilization. In the mining process, many metal and coal mines have actively promoted underground filling technology, realizing that gangue is not brought out of the mine and tailings are not discharged, thus achieving the "reduction" of industrial solid waste at the source. In the beneficiation process, breakthroughs in various beneficiation technologies and processes have not only significantly improved the beneficiation recovery rate and comprehensive utilization rate of minerals, but also enabled some mines to "search for treasures again" from historically stockpiled tailings. Through secondary beneficiation, the tailings resources that were not fully utilized in the past are reused, and all beneficial components are recycled to the maximum extent, which also indirectly reduces the discharge and stockpiling of tailings. In terms of smelting, some enterprises reprocess smelting tailings to re-extract useful elements, reducing the discharge of smelting tailings. Shandong Hongcheng Group reprocesses and sorts the tailings from gold smelting to produce iron concentrate and sulfuric acid products, truly realizing the transformation of waste into valuable resources. In the utilization process, the most prominent is the fly ash generated after coal combustion, which is used by many enterprises in building materials, such as being used as a concrete additive for consumption.
More importantly, through beneficial attempts over the past few years, many regions have explored multiple industrialization technology routes and models for industrial solid waste in accordance with local conditions, enterprise-specific conditions, material-specific conditions, and quantity-specific conditions. For example, fly ash has been widely used in building materials, chemical products, ecological restoration products, etc. Tailings have been successfully applied in fields such as building materials, recovery of valuable elements, tailings backfilling, chemical products, and agriculture. Industrial by-product gypsum has been used in areas like building materials, chemical products, agricultural fertilizers, and soil conditioners.
However, it is undeniable that at present, there are still some industrial solid waste comprehensive utilization projects that are technically feasible but economically irrational, meaning they have no economic benefits and are actually losing money. Many industrial solid waste comprehensive utilization projects are only aimed at getting rid of the "burden" and rely on "blood transfusion" to survive, without forming a positive cycle of self-generated blood, self-development, and turning "burdens" into "wealth". This has led to low enthusiasm among enterprises engaged in industrial solid waste comprehensive utilization.
At present, the supply of technologies for comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste in China has passed the stage of scarcity, and there are many technical routes to choose from. The key is how to conduct scientific and rational technology selection. For massive amounts of solid waste, it corresponds to large-scale disposal and comprehensive management, as well as how to realize a huge market. Only through overall planning, finding low-cost and large-scale underlying technologies as support, superimposing other chain-integratable technologies, and coordinating technologies with high added value, market potential, demand, and application scenarios, to achieve project risk control and investability for investors, can we effectively avoid the strange circle of 'only recycling without economy, or only economy without recycling,'" analyzed Du Genjie.
The actual situation has also verified the existence of this awkward predicament. Data from the Industrial Solid Waste Network shows that in 2023, the comprehensive utilization of bulk industrial solid waste generated in China reached 2.293 billion tons, with a comprehensive utilization rate of 54.06%; in 2024, the national comprehensive utilization of general industrial solid waste was 2.65 billion tons, with a comprehensive utilization rate of 59.2%. Among them, in 2023, the total annual utilization of fly ash was 485 million tons, a decrease of 39 million tons compared to the previous year, with a comprehensive utilization rate of 64.75%; the total annual utilization of by-product gypsum was 131 million tons, with a comprehensive utilization rate of 51.24%; the comprehensive utilization of coal gangue was approximately 584 million tons, a decrease of 17 million tons compared to the previous year, with a comprehensive utilization rate of 68.87%; the national comprehensive utilization of tailings reached 429 million tons, with a comprehensive utilization rate of 30.13%, a year-on-year decrease of 4.13%.
It is not difficult to judge that although the overall comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste in China has increased year by year, the increase is not significant. At present, the overall comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste is less than 60%. Meanwhile, this also means that China will add about 1.8 billion tons of industrial solid waste every year, accounting for 40% of the total annual output.
It should not be ignored that using tailings waste residue and construction solid waste to process sand and gravel aggregates and machine-made sand, using gangue to make bricks, and using fly ash in concrete processing has become the main approach in many places. This is mainly because the construction market has a large capacity and can absorb massive amounts of industrial solid waste. However, with the downturn in the real estate sector, the sand and gravel aggregate market has been hindered, and the comprehensive utilization of solid wastes such as fly ash, gangue, and metal tailings, which account for the majority of industrial solid waste, is bound to decline. This indicates that the paths and directions for the comprehensive utilization of bulk industrial solid waste are too single, mainly concentrated in and dependent on the building materials field. Therefore, it is even more important to expand the space for comprehensive utilization of bulk industrial solid waste and open up a second application market," said Du Genjie.
Incentive and restraint policies are frequently introduced, and the prospect of solid waste utilization is promising.
Only by incorporating solid waste management into the overall layout of high-quality development can we safeguard the bottom line of ecology and safety and accumulate momentum for green development. Although China has made remarkable progress in the comprehensive utilization of bulk industrial solid waste during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, with the total amount and utilization rate of comprehensive utilization steadily increasing, it has not fundamentally curbed the momentum of industrial solid waste growth.
It is predicted that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the total output of bulk industrial solid waste in China will remain at a high level. The discharge of major solid waste from key industries such as metal mines, coal mines, thermal power, coal chemical industry, and alumina will continue to grow. Among them, the annual output of tailings is expected to exceed 1.5 billion tons, the annual output of coal gangue may exceed 900 million tons, and the annual output of fly ash will exceed 930 million tons. With the layout and advancement of the coal chemical industry, especially new projects, the annual output of gasification slag is expected to exceed 100 million tons. It is imperative and urgent to improve the comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste!
At present, China is facing three predicaments in the comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste that urgently need to be solved," Du Genjie said. "First, for resource-based cities, due to the large stock of solid waste left over from historical reasons, they are confronted with difficulties such as great pressure from environmental protection rectification, a large amount of land occupied by industrial solid waste discharge, unclear direction for the development of solid waste resource utilization, a single industrial structure, lack of new economic growth points, and the need to improve the comprehensive utilization rate of solid waste. Second, for enterprises that generate industrial solid waste, they are faced with problems including high environmental protection pressure, no place to discharge newly added industrial solid waste, increasing cost of solid waste disposal year by year, failure to find effective solutions for resource utilization of solid waste, and poor feasibility of 'one enterprise, one policy' projects for comprehensive management and utilization of solid waste. Third, for enterprises that utilize solid waste, they are confronted with predicaments such as difficulty in project implementation due to the inability of single-point high-value technologies to solve massive consumption, limited market and logistics radius for productization caused by the lack of integration of low-cost, large-scale and high-value disposal and comprehensive utilization, increased operational instability factors due to the significant impact of non-market factors on the environmental protection industry, and unstable sources of solid waste.
The most important thing is that the top-level design of participants should be based on solving fundamental problems, and break the deadlock by building a 'proactive government + effective market + effective model'," Du Genjie suggested. Local governments should pay attention to investment promotion for solid waste comprehensive utilization projects, attach sufficient importance to the long-term ecological and environmental risks caused by solid waste, formulate effective comprehensive utilization policies and plans, plan investable projects, achieve precise investment promotion, and give full play to the advantages of precise policy support in comprehensive utilization projects. Enterprises generating solid waste should truly attach importance to it, formulate targeted feasibility study plans and executable solutions for solid waste comprehensive utilization, recognize the disposal cost of solid waste, directly support and give priority to comprehensive utilization, and cultivate professional and independent disposal companies to achieve long-term, profitable and sustainable development. Third-party investors (large investment institutions) should focus on project investment returns, scientifically determine the positioning of the leading growth engine in the solid waste industry chain, design projects in accordance with the principle of "one policy for one place" and "one policy for one material" on the basis of ensuring that the projects are compliant, standardized and large-scale, effectively avoid investment risks, and ensure the feasibility of the project's business model. At the same time, it is also necessary to solve the problem of information asymmetry to ensure the rationalization of the preliminary design of the project.
It is worth noting that the key reasons why the comprehensive utilization rate of bulk industrial solid waste is difficult to increase are its large total volume and low added value. When the scale of comprehensive utilization increases, there is no huge market to consume and absorb it; if the added value increases, the unit cost of comprehensive utilization becomes relatively high, which is difficult for the market to accept.
Due to the large volume of industrial solid waste, it is impossible to provide high subsidies. Without high subsidies, efforts must be made on converted products. Similarly, because of the large volume, the converted products require a huge downstream market for absorption. Since markets with high demand usually have low product prices, this directly imposes hard constraints on conversion costs. Therefore, low-cost, large-scale underlying technologies are needed to support the project foundation, and on this basis, high-value technologies should be configured to form a collaborative combination," analyzed Du Genjie. He pointed out that the comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste must be based on ten-million-ton-level underlying technologies, and high-value utilization technologies (the future direction of investment promotion) should be matched according to local conditions to form a technology combination, creating an industrialization project for comprehensive solid waste utilization that is "investable, attractable for investment, and profitable.
It is gratifying that in recent years, the country has attached great importance to the comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste. Since the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, relevant ministries and commissions have adhered to the principles of combining problem-oriented and goal-oriented approaches, and using both incentives and constraints. They have issued documents many times requiring increased comprehensive utilization of solid waste. Since 2025 alone, relevant state ministries and commissions have successively carried out centralized actions such as special rectification of illegal dumping and disposal of solid waste, investigation and rectification of environmental risk hidden dangers in phosphogypsum storage facilities, and investigation and rectification of environmental safety hidden dangers of heavy metals, forcing the comprehensive utilization of solid waste.
In particular, since the start of 2025, the work on comprehensive utilization of solid waste has been elevated to an unprecedented new height. The recently held Central Economic Work Conference pointed out that a comprehensive management campaign for solid waste should be implemented. The "15th Five-Year Plan" proposal also clearly states that we should improve the system for total resource management and comprehensive conservation, raise the level of waste classification and resource utilization, and promote the development of a circular economy.
At the State Council executive meeting held on December 19, 2025, special arrangements were once again made for the comprehensive management of solid waste. It was proposed that efforts should be made to resolutely curb the growth momentum of solid waste. In accordance with the principles of reduction, recycling and harmlessness, a comprehensive management system for solid waste should be built, which includes source reduction, process control, end-use and full-chain harmless management. Priority should be given to the treatment of solid waste closely related to people's lives and work safety.
Under the guidance of the "dual carbon" goals, the resource attributes and economic value of solid waste have become increasingly prominent. Taking the resource utilization of solid waste as the core to drive the development of upstream and downstream industries is one of the important ways to develop a circular economy and is also an inherent requirement for high-quality development. Du Genjie stated that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the macro policy environment will be conducive to the development of the comprehensive utilization industry of bulk industrial solid waste in the long term. Meanwhile, the further strengthening of pollutant discharge permits for industrial solid waste and information-based supervision and management will "force" the comprehensive utilization of solid waste. Under the superposition of multiple incentive and constraint policies, solid waste will change from an ecological "burden" to a development "increment", and China's comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste is bound to usher in a new spring.
