hina has published a new blueprint for the circular economy, aiming to develop a high-quality recycling system by 2030.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner, released the 15th Five-Year Plan for Circular Economy Development in July, which will guide resource recycling from 2026 to 2030.
The guideline envisions a full closed-loop industrial and social system to safeguard the supply security of national resources and advance a comprehensive green economic transition.
As defined by China's Circular Economy Promotion Law, a circular economy shifts from the traditional linear model of material use, manufacture and discard, to a sustainable loop centered on the "reduce, reuse and recycle" principles. Reduce means cutting raw material input and waste generation at the production stage, reuse means extending product service life via repair, remanufacturing and secondhand circulation, and recycle means recycling used products and converting solid waste and scrapped materials into reusable industrial raw materials. A circular economy features low consumption, low emissions, high efficiency and is environmentally friendly for more sustainable development.
The new circular economy plan has set clear targets to be fulfilled by 2030: Major resource productivity will rise about 16 percent compared to 2025, annual comprehensive utilization volume of bulk solid waste will reach 4.5 billion tons, annual recycled volume of core renewable resources will reach 510 million tons, and total output value of the resource recycling industry will expand to 8 trillion yuan (US$1.8t). By 2035, a high-quality circular economy system with globally leading resource utilization efficiency is expected to be fundamentally established.
To realize those targets, the plan proposes to promote green production and green consumption as well as green design and packaging, prioritize the efficient recycling and utilization of industrial resources, advance eco-circular development in agriculture and forestry, promote green construction throughout the whole engineering and construction process, boost the import and utilization of high-quality recycled raw materials from overseas, standardize the circulation and trading of secondhand goods and optimize targeted recycling capacity for key categories of waste.
Compared to previous documents, this plan for the first time proposes to foster and expand the circular economy services sector and incorporate waste generated from new infrastructure such as computing power facilities into the circular utilization system.
The plan stresses the need to improve end-of-life management and recycling networks for retired batteries, decommissioned wind power equipment, scrapped photovoltaic devices and other related waste.
Authorities will also revise China's Circular Economy Promotion Law to strengthen the legal force and release unified standards and evaluation indicators for local circular economy performance.
At a press conference on July 3 in Beijing, NDRC officials said that in 2025, China's national major resource productivity surged roughly 77 percent compared with 2012. The comprehensive utilization rate of bulk solid waste exceeded 60 percent, and the annual recycling volume of major renewable resources hit 410 million tons. Meanwhile, waste steel and nonferrous metals made up 27 percent and 30 percent of total industrial raw materials used in production, with the output value of the resource recycling industry hitting 5 trillion yuan (US$734.7b), a 10 percent annual growth.
NDRC officials emphasized that the plan is a priority as China is entering a core phase for high-quality development, green transition and realizing its carbon targets. China aims to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
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