On August 24th, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development issued the "Action to Improve the Construction Level of Environmental Infrastructure (2023-2025)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Action to Improve"), which proposed the goal of significantly improving the treatment and disposal capacity and level of environmental infrastructure by 2025, adding 12 million cubic meters of sewage treatment capacity per day, adding and renovating 45000 kilometers of sewage collection pipelines, and building new The production capacity of regenerated water for renovation and expansion shall not be less than 10 million cubic meters per day.

        In terms of solid waste treatment, the "Improvement Action" proposes the goal of building, renovating, and expanding the production capacity of recycled water to no less than 10 million cubic meters per day; The classification and transportation capacity of domestic waste in China has reached over 700000 tons/day, and the incineration and treatment capacity of urban domestic waste in China has reached over 800000 tons/day. The capacity and scale of solid waste disposal and comprehensive utilization have significantly improved, and the disposal capacity of hazardous waste has been fully guaranteed. All medical waste in urban built-up areas at or above the county level has achieved harmless disposal.

        The "Improvement Action" points out that multiple key tasks will be taken, including the improvement of the construction level of domestic waste classification and treatment facilities, the improvement of the construction level of solid waste treatment and utilization facilities, and the improvement of the construction level of park environmental infrastructure.

        The first is the action to improve the construction level of domestic waste classification and treatment facilities. The "Improvement Action" states that it will accelerate the improvement of the domestic waste classification facility system, reasonably layout and construct collection points, collection stations, transfer compression stations, and other facilities, and improve the collection and transportation network. Accelerate the filling of the shortcomings in the incineration and treatment capacity of domestic waste in county-level areas, and encourage the extension of facility coverage to established towns and villages through models such as village collection, town transfer, county treatment, or nearby treatment. Actively and orderly promote the upgrading and renovation of existing incineration facilities, strengthen the construction of facilities' secondary environmental pollution prevention and control capabilities, and gradually improve the operational level of facilities. Exploring the construction of a batch of small household waste incineration treatment facilities with mature processes, stable operation, and emission standards according to local conditions. We will steadily promote the construction of kitchen waste treatment facilities. Standardize the closure and treatment of domestic waste landfill facilities with full storage capacity. Renovation and upgrading of existing landfill facilities, prevention of groundwater pollution, and strengthening of landfill gas recovery.

        In response to the suggestion of improving the construction level of domestic waste classification and treatment facilities, the development of China's waste incineration industry has shifted towards the county level. There is no mandatory requirement for the development goal of urban incineration in the improvement action plan, which is also based on the fact that China's urban waste incineration and treatment capacity has achieved 65% of the development goal in the 14th Five Year Plan. There are still significant shortcomings in county-level waste incineration treatment, and the development of incineration is relatively lagging due to comprehensive factors such as regional, financial, and demographic factors. According to statistics from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development, there were a total of 1482 county towns in China in 2021, of which 257 were garbage incineration plants, mainly concentrated in economically developed and densely populated areas. If the demand ratio of one county and one factory is used, the gap in county level incineration is nearly 1000, which will drive market investment of hundreds of billions. Whether the actual market size that can be released can reach this level remains to be discussed. The plan also improves the collection and transportation system to solve the problem of insufficient waste volume in the county through modes such as "village collection, town transportation, county treatment" or "nearby treatment".

        From the current county-level projects that have been released in the market, the market for small-scale incineration in 2023 is mainly concentrated in the southwest, northwest, and northeast regions. The overall size of the projects is small, the cost is high, and the average investment per ton is over 700000 yuan. The backend energy utilization efficiency level is low, and there are also practical problems such as technical processes, flue gas standards, lack of standards, and immature business models. The high cost and the many problems it faces are still worth paying attention to whether the county's finance can support the stable operation of the project and the reasonable investment return of the enterprise. The theoretical market space for county-level incineration is relatively large, but it still requires the joint efforts of the government, enterprises, and scientific research institutions to fully demonstrate the feasibility of the project in advance, improve the design of business models, and continuously expand service boundaries and explore cogeneration models to ensure the stable operation and reasonable profitability of the project.

        Next is the action to improve the construction level of solid waste treatment, disposal and utilization facilities. The "Improvement Action" states that it will actively promote the construction of solid waste disposal and comprehensive utilization facilities, and comprehensively enhance the capacity of facility disposal and comprehensive utilization in multiple aspects. Optimize the layout and construction of facilities for the transfer, allocation, disposal, and resource utilization of construction waste, actively promote the classification and resource utilization of construction waste, and accelerate the formation of a construction waste treatment facility system that matches the needs of urban development. Overall planning and construction of renewable resource processing and utilization bases, strengthening the construction of renewable resource recycling, sorting, and disposal facilities, accelerating the construction of a regional renewable resource recycling system, and improving the level of recyclable materials recycling and resource utilization. Regions that support the construction of "waste free cities" are the first to explore and form replicable and promotable implementation models.

        Subsequently, there will be actions to improve the construction level of centralized disposal facilities for hazardous waste and medical waste. Strengthen the construction of special category hazardous waste disposal capacity, accelerate the construction of national and 6 regional hazardous waste risk prevention and control centers, and 20 regional special hazardous waste centralized disposal centers. Actively promote the construction of hazardous waste disposal capacity within the province, and accelerate the overall matching with the waste production situation. Strengthen the control of hazardous waste sources and the supervision of processes such as collection and transportation, and enhance the environmental supervision and risk prevention capabilities of hazardous waste. Establish a sound system for the collection, transportation, and disposal of medical waste, deepen the reform of the franchise business model for medical waste disposal, and ensure that all types of medical waste are fully collected and disposed of.

        Next is the action to improve the level of environmental infrastructure construction in the park. The "Improvement Action" states that it will actively promote the centralized and reasonable layout of the park's environmental infrastructure, and increase the construction of pollutant collection, treatment, and disposal facilities in the park. Promote the construction model of venous industrial parks, and encourage the construction of comprehensive disposal bases that integrate sewage, garbage, solid waste, hazardous waste, medical waste treatment, disposal, and resource utilization. Promote the construction of renewable resource processing and utilization bases (parks), strengthen the industrial circular links of the bases (parks), promote the sharing of various treatment facilities, process equipment, resources and energy, environmental pollution control, responsibility and risk sharing, and achieve reasonable utilization of resources, effective disposal of pollutants, and controllable environmental risks.

        Finally, there is an action to improve the construction level of monitoring and regulatory facilities. The "Improvement Action" states that it will promote the "one certificate" management of pollutant discharge permits in various aspects, establish a regulatory and law enforcement system for pollutant discharge units based on pollutant discharge permits, and establish a self monitoring and supervision mechanism. Strictly implement the requirements of "installation, treeing, and connection" for household waste incineration plants, strengthen the automatic monitoring of pollutants and the marking of automatic monitoring data working conditions, and strengthen the supervision of the entire process of incineration fly ash disposal and landfill leachate treatment. Improve the national hazardous waste environmental management information system, achieve online declaration of hazardous waste generation, online filing of management plans, online operation of transfer documents, online reporting of utilization and disposal status, and online monitoring of the entire process. Improve the sewage treatment monitoring system and strengthen the supervision of sewage treatment discharge standards. Encourage all regions to carry out full process information management of sludge production, transportation, and treatment based on actual situations, and track the whereabouts of sludge.

        The action plan also provides clear instructions on the direction of improving construction waste, hazardous waste, and medical waste, but does not provide specific quantitative indicators. At the level of construction waste, it is pointed out to optimize the layout and construction of facilities for transfer, allocation, disposal, and resource utilization of construction waste, actively promote the classification and resource utilization of construction waste, and accelerate the formation of a construction waste treatment facility system that matches the needs of urban development. It is worth noting that in the design of construction waste, attention should be paid to the source of front-end materials and the resource utilization of the end. The direction of improving hazardous waste is focused on the construction of disposal capacity for special types of hazardous waste. This type of hazardous waste cannot be effectively solved by relying solely on market mechanisms. Accelerating the construction of national and regional risk prevention and control centers for hazardous waste and regional centralized disposal centers for special hazardous waste is the future development direction. In addition, the notice also mentioned the construction of kitchen waste treatment facilities and landfill treatment, and suggested that relevant market entities pay attention to the opportunities in this field.