China Unveils 15th Five-Year Plan for Solid Waste Pollution Control
China has issued its first-ever dedicated five-year plan for solid waste pollution prevention and control, setting ambitious targets through 2030 that include capping hazardous waste landfill disposal at 10% of total treatment and building a network of “Zero-Waste Cities” across the country.
The plan, jointly released on July 14 by six central government departments led by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), marks a significant escalation in China’s environmental agenda as the nation turns its attention to what officials describe as a critical “shortcoming” in the construction of a “Beautiful China.”
A Strategic Window of Opportunity
According to Xinhua News Agency, the plan was signed on July 8 by the MEE, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and Ministry of Commerce. It carries the document number Huan Guti [2026] No. 39.
An MEE official spokesperson characterized the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026–2030) as a “strategic window of opportunity” for solid waste management, adding that it represents “a critical period for tackling tough challenges and overcoming difficulties.”
The Scale of the Challenge
The plan confronts a problem of staggering proportions. China produces over 11 billion tonnes of solid waste annually, with approximately 30 billion tonnes of industrial solid waste accumulated over decades of rapid industrialization. As air and water quality have improved significantly in recent years, solid waste has emerged as the next major environmental frontier.
In a Q&A session with the MEE Department of Solid Waste and Chemicals, officials acknowledged that “problems such as numerous and widespread solid waste pollution points, poor utilization and disposal channels, and frequent illegal dumping and disposal have not yet been fundamentally resolved.”
The scale of illegal activity is stark: from June 2025 to June 2026, a nationwide special campaign identified 51,000 cases of illegal dumping and disposal of solid waste, with 41,000 cases rectified and 71.22 million tonnes of waste cleared.
Key Targets and New Performance Indicators
The plan sets several headline targets for 2030:
- Significant results in key-area solid waste remediation
- Effective control of historically stockpiled solid waste
- Curbing the high incidence of illegal dumping and disposal
- Full-coverage digital monitoring — a “one network” system for key areas
- A nationwide cap on hazardous waste landfill disposal at 10% of total treatment
- Construction of multiple “Zero-Waste Cities”
A notable innovation is the introduction of a new performance indicator: the “incidence of illegal dumping and disposal of solid waste events.” This metric, calculated per unit land area per province, will use satellite remote sensing by the MEE for random inspections, alongside media exposure and environmental inspection findings. To incentivize proactive local action, self-reported and voluntarily corrected issues are excluded from the calculation. The indicator will undergo a two-year trial period before full implementation.
The Hazardous Waste Landfill Cap
Perhaps the most consequential target is the 10% cap on hazardous waste landfill disposal. The “14th Five-Year” period saw rapid growth in hazardous waste landfill volumes, creating substantial environmental risks. The new plan aims to reverse this trend through several measures: decomposing the national target into provincial-level targets, promoting advanced recycling technologies, encouraging resource utilization of large-volume hazardous wastes such as municipal solid waste incineration fly ash, and revising pollution control standards for landfill facilities.
This target is grounded in China’s newly codified Ecological and Environmental Code, which mandates that the state “promote source reduction and full resource utilization of urban and rural solid waste, and minimize the amount of solid waste sent to landfill.”
Sector-Specific Measures and Zero-Waste Cities
The plan addresses solid waste management across multiple sectors with tailored requirements:
- Industrial solid waste — comprehensive management and reduction
- Hazardous waste — full-chain supervision and treatment optimization
- Waste electrical and electronic products & retired new energy equipment — specialized treatment requirements
- Municipal, construction, and agricultural solid waste — sector-specific pollution prevention measures
Priority areas for targeted remediation campaigns include illegal dumping, cave/karst cave garbage, phosphogypsum dumps, and both municipal and hazardous waste landfills.
The “Zero-Waste City” initiative, which began as a pilot program during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, will be expanded significantly. The 15th Five-Year Plan specifies the construction path and key areas for Zero-Waste City development through 2030.
Implications and Outlook
The plan represents China’s most comprehensive and systematic approach to solid waste management to date. It sits within a broader policy framework that includes the State Council’s Solid Waste Comprehensive Management Action Plan (issued December 2025) and the Beautiful China Construction 15th Five-Year Plan, which dedicates a separate chapter to solid waste management.
Local governments will face new performance evaluation metrics tied to illegal dumping incidence, while industries generating hazardous waste will need to invest significantly in recycling and treatment technologies to meet the 10% landfill cap. The integration of satellite remote sensing and digital monitoring represents a technological upgrade in environmental enforcement that could serve as a model for other regulatory domains.
As China’s environmental protection agenda evolves, solid waste management has been positioned as the next frontier — following significant progress on air and water quality over the past decade. The success of this plan will depend on implementation at the provincial and local levels, the effectiveness of new monitoring technologies, and the availability of funding for remediating historically stockpiled industrial waste.
With the two-year trial period for the illegal dumping indicator now beginning, and provincial-level targets for hazardous waste reduction yet to be finalized, the coming months will be critical in determining whether China can translate ambitious policy into tangible environmental results.