Xi’an, an ancient city in northwest China, has a long history and a more than 13 million population. Before 2020, nearly all municipal solid waste (MSW) was treated by sanitary landfills. The amount of MSW raised rapidly in recent years is an urgent challenge along with the increasing population, which means that a new way to manage the MSW should be explored.
- High-level Planning and Promoting the Integrated MSW Treatment
At the end of 2018, aiming to further improve the environment friendly MSW treatment and waste utilization, Xi’an Municipality CPC Committee and the Municipality Government launched the action plan to build and operate 5 MSW incineration plants (Waste to Energy, WtE plant) in Xi’an, with electricity gereration or cogeneration facilities, integrating with the concept of modernization, intelligence, ecology and low carbonization development. Clear strategic goals and transition pathways have been set for this trasition process.
The whole process was promoted by three steps.
- Firstly, a specialized working group has been founded, which consists of the key members from Xi ‘an Municipality CPC Party Committee and the Municipality Government to ensure the government support;
- Second, the project “operation map” has been developed, and 40 tasks in 7 phases were sorted out with clear deadlines to ensure the progress, including project start-up, implementation plan demonstration, bidding and procurement, preliminary procedures, construction application, construction, commercial operation;
- Thirdly, the utilization of “Compensation Measures”. By establishing the ecological compensation mechanism, the goal of sustainable social and economic development in the surrounding area has been achieved, creating a benign development environment for the construction and operation of the project.
This series of work measures has laid a solid foundation for the smooth completion and operation of the MSW incineration projects.
WtE projects are open to middle and primary school students and the general public as an education site
2. Introduce social investment to promote the project construction
Social capital was involved in all five WtE plants, with a total investment of about 7 billion RMB Yuan and a total MSW incineration capacity up to 12,750 tons per day. These plants all use the most mature technology-the grate furnace. These five plants supply power and heat to Xi’an city and the surrounding areas, with over 500 KWh of electricity per ton MSW can be provided. During the year 2019, four of these plants were planned, constructed and operated as the first batch, followed by the fifth one put into operation in 2023. The average construction period of each WtE plant was less than 14 months, which is representative of high efficiency in China, especially with this large scale and high investment.
3. Standardized and efficient operation, remarkable environment protection results
The municipal level authorities together with the district level departments are responsible for the supervision of these 5 plants during the operation phase. A professional third-party agency was hired to conduct on-site 24-hour supervision and to support the safe and stable operation of the plants. Until now, four of the five WtE plants have been rated AAA (the highest level of construction and operation in China’s WtE industry), and one built in 2023 still needs some more time to fulfil the requirement of operation time. These five WtE plants have already achieved a total treatment amount of 16 million tons of MSW, generated about 8GWh of electricity, and provided a large amount of steam heat for the surrounding area. The pollutant emission limit of flu gas has been significantly optimized, through refined management and the addition of decontamination additives. The currently implemented emission limits for pollutants are more restrictive than China National Standard GB 18485-2014 and EU DIRECTIVE 2010.
This is the transition of MSW management in Xi’an, a vivid story of how a mega city tackles the waste management challenge.
