Solid waste management. Solid waste is a rapidly growing phenomenon in Chinese society, partly due to rapidly changing private consumption. Untreated solid waste is piling up at an unprecedented scale, and investments in sanitary landfills have been alarmingly short. Few cities or regions have invested in modern waste-to-energy facilities (through incineration or gasification). The 13th FYP has identified household waste and the waste from construction as most critical issues, which both point at the need to introduce more consistently an approach of waste separation, recycling and reuse. The absence of waste-to-energy technology is a major opportunity for future decentralised energy projects. The New Urbanization Policy recommends setting up of systems of collection and reutilization of kitchen and building waste. Until 2020, in all cities above prefecture level, waste water shall be 100% collected and treated. All buildings should have waste classification facilities.
