China Built 700 Waste-to-Energy Plants in 6 Years

In 2019, the BBC published a trashy story about one of Mainland China’s largest landfills. The Jiangcungou (江村沟垃圾填埋场) in the city of Xi’an, the story goes, had run out of capacity some 25 years ahead of schedule. That year, China had about 400 incineration and waste-to-energy plants. About 50% of the country’s municipal solid waste was processed by incineration. Six years later, the Chinese situation is a lot more interesting. In 2025, China has over 1,137 incineration plants and over 80% of Chinese municipal solid waste is incinerated. The country has about 1.2 million tons of daily incineration capacity, but just 700,000 tons of daily waste collection capacity. Thus, mothballed capacity plus counties digging up old landfills. Human history has never seen a more furious span of incinerator building. How did China build 700 incinerator plants in six years? In today’s video, a look at China’s 2020s incinerator boom.