From "Waste" to "Treasure": Decoding the Governance Code and Technological Breakthroughs of Shanghai's "Zero Waste City"

As the fourth “International Day of Zero Waste” is upon us, Shanghai has turned in a solid “zero-waste” report card: the 2025 “Zero Waste Index” has reached 86.96! After two consecutive years of steady improvement, multiple key indicators have achieved a green leap. The index has also become a “medical checkup form” for measuring a city’s governance level. Reporters’ on-the-ground investigation found that from Hongkou District to Jinshan District, from residential areas to industrial zones, the concept of “zero waste” is gradually turning into a distinctive backdrop for high-quality urban development.

In a super-large city like Shanghai, the amount of waste generated every day is astonishing. These seven categories of solid waste—municipal solid waste, medical waste, industrial solid waste, hazardous waste, construction waste, agricultural waste, and municipal sludge—along with their final destinations and treatment methods, are worth in-depth exploration by each and every one of us.

As Lei Guoxing, Secretary of the Party General Branch of the Anqiu Residential Community in Jiashan Road Subdistrict, Hongkou District, Shanghai, said, “This is a living space that all of us share. Only by awakening all idle resources, so that older residential communities can use brand-new improvement plans, can the community’s garbage bins become a wonderful place that gives off a pleasant fragrance and heals people’s hearts.”

Recently, reporters from the International Financial News in multiple corners of this city in Shanghai have seen different green “zero-waste” samples.

Residential Sector: Waste Sorting Unlocks a Warm Neighborhood Code

In the residential sector, the Anqiu Residential Community in Jiashan Road Subdistrict, Hongkou District (Ruihong Phase IV), has become a warm example of green-carbon innovation in the city’s “high-age” residential communities, thanks to a series of ingenious design ideas and practical actions taken by residents. It vividly demonstrates an upgrade and transformation from “a new fashion for waste sorting” to “low-carbon living.”

As a core link in green-carbon governance, the Anqiu residential community has achieved closed-loop innovation in waste treatment. Wet waste does not need to be transported out of the community. Inside a dedicated garbage processing room in the garage, it can be converted into organic fertilizer in just 16 hours, directly supplied for use to the community’s green plants, truly realizing “turning waste into treasure.” At the same time, the community is also equipped with photovoltaic power generation facilities for green and energy-saving operations throughout. Through scientific odor-removal and pest-control technologies, it completely solves the problems of lingering bad smells in traditional garbage rooms and the breeding of mosquitoes and insects, making the waste-processing process both environmentally friendly and convenient for residents. To further stimulate residents’ enthusiasm, the community also links classified waste bins to residents’ carbon accounts, using carbon-point incentives to help residents develop sorting habits, so that the idea that “sorting has value” takes deep root in people’s hearts.

In addition to waste governance, the community also focuses on residents’ commuting pain points and taps into green-carbon potential within the garage space. To address the difficulty of charging new-energy vehicles, the community has introduced a private-stake off-peak sharing model: the stake owners open their idle private charging stations to others during unused time slots and can obtain service-fee returns; stake-less vehicle owners can enjoy charging services at residents’ electricity prices. Through mutual help among neighbors, the charging difficulty problem is resolved.

Compared with the standout green-carbon initiatives above, even more moving is the neighborhood warmth and community vitality bubbling behind the “green.” In the Anqiu community, green-carbon measures quickly bring neighbors closer. Here, whether seniors, young people, or children, everyone can find a path to participate in green-carbon practices. Children learn environmental knowledge through waste-sorting games. Seniors participate in green-plant care and pass on everyday life experience. Young people expand their social circles through shared charging-station use.

From the human-centered design of the garbage bins to wet waste being transformed into green-plant fertilizer; from the warm settlement of stray cats and dogs to the mutual-aid model of shared private stakes—every idle corner in the basement garage, every blade of grass and every tree in the garden, and every creative idea in the garbage room all come from the residents living on the floors above in Ruihong Phase IV. This model that deeply integrates ecological governance with community building not only helps the concept of a harmonious community where “everyone participates and everyone shares” take root, but also—through its innovative practices—moves from residents’ residential communities in Shanghai to the international stage, providing vivid examples for global sustainable community governance.

Industrial Sector: Recycled Aluminum Builds a New Car “Skeleton”

In the field of industrial solid waste governance, Shanghai has always been at the forefront nationwide and has delivered an impressive green answer. Data show that Shanghai’s comprehensive utilization rate of general industrial solid waste is as high as 97.9%. The comprehensive utilization rates of bulk industrial solid wastes such as smelting slag and fly ash have long been stably maintained at over 99%.

With the deepening push of the “dual carbon” goals, the new-energy vehicle industry is booming and the trend toward vehicle lightweighting is becoming increasingly evident. Recycled aluminum, with its advantages of low carbon and environmental friendliness and controllable costs, has become a key material for automakers to realize green transformation, and market demand has continued to rise. In Shanghai’s Jinshan District, Shuaixingchi New Materials Group Co., Ltd. is precisely a leader in this wave of “urban mining” gold-rush.

“Shanghai is where Shuaixingchi’s dreams set sail. We are not only manufacturing—we are also digging deep into the value of ‘urban mining.’” Company Chairman and General Manager Cheng Shuai introduced that, as an industry giant with seven production bases across the country, Shuaixingchi currently produces 1 million tons of recycled aluminum per year, with overall strength firmly ranking in the top three in the industry. It is also absolutely leading in the direct supply market for aluminum melt.

Stepping into Shuaixingchi’s factory, industrial waste aluminum (the offcuts from aluminum alloy processing plants) and social waste aluminum (e.g., beverage cans, lipstick tubes, and so on), after a series of processes including classification, crushing, and melting, are transformed into high-quality recycled aluminum ingots. They are then directly supplied to automobile parts manufacturers and ultimately used to produce new-energy vehicles, forming an ecological closed loop of “centralized local recycling—local melting and processing—local manufacturing and applications.”

According to forecasts by the China Society of Automotive Engineering, the amount of aluminum used per vehicle in 2025 is expected to reach 250 kilograms, and by 2030 it will further increase to 350 kilograms. This means that demand for the recycled aluminum market will experience explosive growth, and Shuaixingchi has undoubtedly become an important “green granary” in Shanghai’s automobile industrial chain.

Reporters visited Shuaixingchi’s R&D base and saw the new car “skeletons” made with recycled aluminum everywhere. The company said that its core customers currently include well-known domestic and international automakers such as BMW, BYD, NIO, Li Auto, Volkswagen, and Toyota.

In the Beikechuang Bio-Technology Industrial Park in Hongkou District, Shanghai, Shanghai Blue Crystal Microbiology Technology Co., Ltd. uses synthetic biology technology to solve the difficult problem of treating restaurant kitchen waste oil. “Our core product is PHA (polyhydroxy fatty acid ester) bio-based biodegradable materials. PHA is a new type of eco-friendly high-molecular material synthesized by microorganisms that can be completely degraded in a variety of natural environments. The second-generation carbon source can directly use restaurant kitchen waste oil—such as trap oil and gutter oil—as raw material. From one ton of waste oil, 0.67 tons to 0.8 tons of PHA can be prepared, creating economic value of 30,000 to 40,000 yuan. That is 4 to 5 times higher than producing biodiesel,” said Liu Li, the person in charge of public affairs at Blue Crystal Microbiology. At the same time, relying on its independently developed “bio-hybrid” technology, during fermentation the strains can capture and fix carbon dioxide in the air, reducing PHA’s carbon footprint by 64% compared with traditional petrochemical plastics.

Reporters noticed that PHA has been widely used in scenarios such as packaging, disposable tableware (knives, forks, and spoons), straws, coatings for paper cups, and film bags. Currently, biodegradable plastic bags and disposable tableware have been applied in a demonstration in Hongkou District. Compared with traditional plastics, they can reduce a large amount of pollutant emissions.

Agricultural Sector: Circular Livestock Farming Tackles the Pain Point of Environmental Burden

In agriculture, Shanghai actively promotes pilot projects for ecological circular agriculture. Across the whole city, the supporting equipment outfitting rate of facilities for manure and waste treatment in large-scale livestock and poultry farms reaches 100%, and agricultural wastes are effectively processed and utilized.

‌In Shanghai Songlin Wanchun Ecological Farm in Langxia Town, Jinshan District, relying on a closed-loop circular agriculture system of “pig—biogas—vegetables,” it has solved the industry’s pain point of traditional pig farms—“bad smells disturbing residents and pollution that is hard to eliminate.” As Fu Juanlin, General Manager of Shanghai Songlin Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., introduced, in this ecological farm, environmental governance costs are deeply embedded in the pig-raising industrial chain. It truly realizes that waste is “fully processed until nothing is left,” exploring a sustainable sample for odor-free ecological livestock breeding for a metropolis.

From digital platforms, it can be seen that Shanghai’s first building-style ecological pig farm adopts a four-story three-dimensional breeding model, saving more than 80% of land. It only takes 40 people to manage 40,000 head of pigs. The pigsty is equipped with fully automatic feeding, manure-scraping systems, and environmental control equipment.

The key to having zero “odors” throughout the entire breeding area is that pig manure and urine are directly conveyed through sealed pipelines to an anaerobic fermentation pool. The biogas produced through fermentation has a daily output of 10,000 to 15,000 cubic meters, which can generate more than 10,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day. This meets the pig farm’s own use and there is still surplus. It is reported that after purification, the farm produces biomethane with a purity of 97%, which has been connected to the municipal natural gas pipeline network, with an annual gas supply of about 1.75 million cubic meters. At the same time, the fermentation byproducts—biogas slurry and biogas residue—after processing become high-quality organic fertilizer. They are delivered through underground pipeline networks to nearby farmlands. The annual land application amount reaches 80,000 tons, covering 12,000 mu of high-quality farmland, reducing fertilizer use by 30%—50%.

On the planting side, the Langxia farm uses biogas slurry to irrigate rice and vegetables, enabling green and ecological planting.‌ The “carbon dioxide ‘gas fertilizer’ technology” increases yields of leafy vegetables by more than 18%, and increases yields of tomatoes and cucumbers by over 20%. The entire park builds a complete circular chain of “breeding—biogas—organic fertilizer—planting,” forming a new low-carbon agricultural layout of “a ten-thousand-head pig farm + ten-thousand-mu vegetable fields.”

(Illustrations in the article were all photographed by Wang Liying.)