Sustainable waste management for zero waste cities in China: potential, challenges and opportunities

Waste is a valuable secondary carbon resource. In the linear economy, it is predominantly landfilled or incinerated. These disposal routes not only lead to diverse climate, environmental and societal problems; they also represent a loss of carbon resources. In a circular carbon economy, waste is used as a secondary carbon feedstock to replace fossil resources for production. This contributes to environmental protection and resource conservation. It furthermore increases a nation’s independence from imported fossil energy sources. China is at the start of its transition from a linear to circular carbon economy. It can thus draw on waste management experiences of other economies and assess the opportunities for transference to support its development of ‘zero waste cities’. This paper has three main focuses. First is an assessment of drivers for China’s zero waste cities initiative and the approaches that have been implemented to combat its growing waste crisis. Second is a sharing of Germany’s experience—a forerunner in the implementation of the waste hierarchy (reduce–reuse–recycle–recover–landfill) with extensive experience in circular carbon technologies—in sustainable waste management. Last is an identification of transference opportunities for China’s zero waste cities. Specific transference opportunities identified range from measures to promote waste prevention, waste separation and waste reduction, generating additional value via mechanical recycling, implementing chemical recycling as a recycling option before energy recovery to extending energy recovery opportunities.