Representative Kang Hua:

Your Recommendation on Expanding New Channels for the Large-scale Disposal and Utilization of General Industrial Solid Waste has been received. Your concern and expectations for ecological and environmental work are our greatest encouragement. We sincerely thank you for your concern and support for our work. After joint research with the Provincial Department of Natural Resources, we hereby reply as follows:

1. Legal Basis

To further advance the pollution prevention and control of solid waste, the state has successively introduced a series of laws and regulations that clearly define and standardize the responsibilities related to solid waste management.

Article 35 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste stipulates: The people's governments at or above the county level shall formulate work plans for the prevention and control of environmental pollution by industrial solid waste, organize the construction of centralized industrial solid waste disposal facilities, and promote pollution prevention and control work for industrial solid waste. Article 40 stipulates: Units generating industrial solid waste shall, according to economic and technical conditions, make use of industrial solid waste; for solid waste that is temporarily not usable or cannot be used, storage facilities and sites shall be built in accordance with the provisions of the competent departments under the State Council such as ecological and environmental authorities, and classified storage or harmless disposal measures shall be adopted.

Article 10 of the Henan Provincial Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste (implemented on March 1, 2025) stipulates: The ecological and environmental authorities of the people's governments at the provincial, municipal divided-district, and city levels shall, together with relevant departments, formulate special plans for the prevention and control of environmental pollution by solid waste, and coordinate the construction of facilities for the collection, storage, transportation, utilization, and disposal of solid waste. Article 11 stipulates: The people's governments at or above the county level and their relevant departments shall, when preparing territorial spatial plans and related special plans, coordinate the needs for facilities such as the collection, storage, transfer, and centralized disposal of industrial solid waste, and ensure land for relevant facilities.

In March 2026, the Law of the People's Republic of China on Ecological Environment was promulgated and will come into force on August 15, 2026, putting forward higher requirements for strengthening the prevention and control of solid waste pollution.

2. Work Undertaken

(1) Strengthening top-level design for the resource utilization of solid waste. First, scientifically formulate the Henan Province "15th Five-Year Plan" for circular economic development. The Provincial Development and Reform Commission is currently, together with relevant units, conducting research and drafting the Henan Province "15th Five-Year Plan" for circular economic development (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). The Plan intends to propose expanding the large-scale multi-scenario utilization of industrial solid waste, exploring new scenarios for coal gangue and fly ash utilization, promoting full-component utilization of metallurgical slag, breaking through the difficult issue of comprehensive utilization of red mud, advancing the re-selection and coordinated utilization of tailings, and improving the utilization of industrial by-product gypsum. Efforts will be made to vigorously advance the coordinated utilization of various solid wastes, promote the coordinated model of "solid waste generating enterprises + comprehensive utilization enterprises," explore an "Internet + solid waste" trading platform, and promote efficient cross-regional allocation of resources. At the same time, in accordance with the requirements of the State Council's Action Plan for the Comprehensive Treatment of Solid Waste, the province's comprehensive treatment of solid waste will be coordinated, further improving the ability to comprehensively utilize industrial solid waste and strengthening the efficient extraction and overall utilization of valuable components, helping drive the industry's transformation toward standardization, clustering, and high-end development. Second, solid waste planning has been coordinated and implemented. In February 2022, our department issued the Henan Province "14th Five-Year Plan" for the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste and the Construction of Centralized Disposal Facilities and Sites for Hazardous Waste, encouraging the use of facilities such as industrial kilns and cement kilns to dispose of industrial solid waste such as tailings, fly ash, coal gangue, smelting slag, desulfurization gypsum, etc., accelerating the construction of regional centralized disposal centers for industrial solid waste, and coordinating the harmless disposal of industrial solid waste that is difficult to comprehensively utilize. In 2023, the Henan Province Work Plan for Building a "Waste-free City" During the "14th Five-Year Plan" Period was issued, vigorously promoting the comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste. Third, policy support has been strengthened. The Provincial Development and Reform Commission has successively issued policy documents such as the Henan Province "15th Five-Year Plan" for Circular Economic Development and Several Measures of Henan Province to Support the Development of the Circular Utilization Industry of Renewable Resources, continuously improving the policy system, taking the development of circular economy as an important measure to accelerate comprehensive green transformation and promote high-quality development, and solidly advancing the circular utilization of industrial solid waste. At the same time, through policy funds such as the "Two New" initiative and central budget investment, support has been increased for the construction of circular utilization projects for solid waste.

(2) Effectively safeguarding the environmental risk control of industrial solid waste. In accordance with the unified deployment of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, in 2025, our department organized a typical survey of industrial solid waste stockpiling sites. This survey focused on typical large industrial solid waste stockpiles such as tailings, fly ash, coal gangue, smelting slag, furnace slag, desulfurization gypsum, phosphogypsum, red mud, and gasification slag, with stockpiles exceeding 100,000 tons, and established a basic information database, basically identifying the base number of typical large industrial solid waste stockpiles across the province. At the same time, a solid waste registration system was established, supervising key industrial solid waste-generating units to strictly implement the Guidelines for the Control Standard for Pollution at Storage and Landfill Sites for General Industrial Solid Waste and the account-book management guidance, and strictly implementing ledger management for generation, storage, and disposal utilization. In 2025, the province issued the Special Rectification Action Plan for Illegal Dumping and Disposal of Solid Waste in Henan Province (2025-2027), promoting the verification of industrial solid waste stockpiles and rectification of problems.

(3) Actively advancing the construction of the solid waste platform. The Professional Committee on Solid Waste Treatment and Utilization of the Henan Environmental Protection Industry Association and Henan United Property Rights Trading Group are planning to jointly build the "Henan Solid Waste Resource Trading Platform" (hereinafter referred to as the "Solid Waste Trading Platform"), which will realize resource sharing and complementary advantages through the coordinated model of "online trading + offline services," forming a construction and operation pattern of "government guidance, association coordination, state-owned enterprise leadership, platform support, and multi-party collaboration," laying a necessary foundation for standardized trading of solid waste resources and cross-regional circulation in Henan Province. The platform can provide full-process services for solid waste (including major categories such as industrial solid waste, renewable resources, hazardous waste, processing trade waste materials, and discarded materials), including listing, bidding, settlement, certification, electronic transfer orders, etc., and carry out work such as mapping waste-producing enterprises, recycling enterprises, supply-demand matching, standard promotion, and credit evaluation. At present, the platform has completed scheme design, and follow-up work is progressing in an orderly manner.

(4) Increasing policy support and capital investment. Since 2024, the provincial finance has coordinated special funds related to soil pollution prevention and control, ultra-long-term special treasury bonds, and other funds, continuously increasing support for the resource utilization of solid waste in our province. Soil pollution prevention and control funds have been arranged to subsidize the resource utilization of fly ash from domestic waste incineration across the province. Multiple releases of the "Guiding Announcement on Capacity Building for Hazardous Waste Utilization and Disposal in Henan Province" have encouraged the R&D, application, demonstration, and promotion of advanced technologies for hazardous waste comprehensive utilization and disposal, guiding social capital to participate in the construction of hazardous waste utilization and disposal projects, and improving the market-oriented level of disposal capacity.

3. Next Steps

In light of your recommendations, our department will build on the existing work and, together with the Provincial Development and Reform Commission and other departments, implement the Action Plan for the Comprehensive Treatment of Solid Waste as the starting point, and do the following work well:

(1) Continue to strengthen policy guidance. The Provincial Development and Reform Commission will, together with relevant departments, continuously improve and optimize the contents of the Plan, and formulate as soon as possible the implementation plan for the comprehensive treatment of solid waste in our province. Guided by planning and improved by the policy system, we will promote the transformation of industrial solid waste toward efficient, high-value, multi-scenario, and large-scale utilization, continuously increase the comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste, and form a sustainable development pattern in which the upstream and downstream of the solid waste industry chain work together and efficiency increases in tandem. At the same time, we will continue to make good use of national policy funds, increase support for industrial solid waste circular utilization projects that meet policy requirements, and promote new achievements in the circular economic development of the whole province during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.

(2) Strengthen standardized management of industrial solid waste. Relying on the national solid waste information management platform, establish a database of industrial solid waste generation and utilization/disposal. Improve the list of supervised industrial solid waste-generating units. Implement the ledger system for industrial solid waste management and strengthen full-chain tracking and control. Promote the classified collection and classified storage of industrial solid waste, prevent mixed piling and mixed disposal, and reserve conditions for resource utilization.

(3) Promote source reduction of industrial solid waste. Taking ecological environment zoning control as the starting point, strictly manage projects with large solid waste generation and difficult disposal. Strengthen source control of industrial solid waste in industrial parks. Encourage enterprises to increase investment in technological transformation, improve production processes and equipment, and reduce the intensity of solid waste generation.

(4) Steadily explore large-scale disposal and utilization channels. Support and encourage local governments to comprehensively promote the large-scale utilization of industrial solid waste, and explore large-scale disposal and utilization of solid waste through methods such as underground filling, mine backfilling, ecological restoration, and road base materials. Strictly follow relevant approval and decision-making procedures, and firmly prevent the use of large-scale disposal and utilization as a pretext for illegal dumping.

(5) Strengthen risk control for key solid waste. Promote harmless pretreatment of large industrial solid waste such as phosphogypsum and red mud, and reduce the amount of storage and landfill, as well as environmental pollution risks. Strengthen pollution control of facilities such as red mud stockyards, phosphogypsum stockyards, coal gangue stockpiles, and tailings stockyards, and promote the resolution of their environmental risk governance issues.

Once again, thank you for your concern and support for our province's comprehensive utilization of solid waste, and we welcome you to continue to offer valuable suggestions.