Suzhou among UN's top 20 zero-waste cities globally

The United Nations Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Zero Waste recently announced that Suzhou has been selected as one of the global "20 Cities Towards Zero Waste," becoming a model city for zero-waste urban development worldwide.

In September 2025, the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Zero Waste launched the global 20 Cities Towards Zero Waste initiative, aiming to select pioneering cities worldwide that exemplify waste reduction, resource recycling, and sustainable management with replicable success stories to offer practical solutions to the world.
In recent years, Suzhou has continued to promote its zero-waste city construction, achieving 100% coverage in the collection, transportation, and disposal systems for domestic waste across its 8,600-square-kilometer urban and rural areas. The city has successfully tackled the annual challenge of processing 9.2067 million tons of household waste. Through waste incineration, Suzhou generated 3.03 billion kWh of electricity in 2024, equivalent to saving 1 million tons of standard coal, which was enough to power 1.1 million households for a year. It also achieved a 56% reduction in total carbon emissions and a 67% decrease in carbon intensity throughout the entire process.

Suzhou Industrial Park Circular Economy Industrial Park/Photo courtesy of Suzhou Industrial Park Ecology and Environment Bureau

Exemplifying this pioneering model is the Suzhou Industrial Park Circular Economy Industrial Park, which breaks conventional boundaries by integrating seven facilities, including wastewater treatment plants, sludge disposal plants, food (kitchen) waste processing plants, and thermal power plants, into a synergistic system, creating an efficient "waste-resource-energy" closed-loop chain. By the end of 2024, the park had cumulatively supplied 38.46 million cubic meters of bio-natural gas to the grid, reduced CO2 emissions by approximately 800,000 tons, generated 5.9 billion kWh of electricity, and reused 20.07 million tons of reclaimed water, achieving systemic optimization of regional material metabolism.
Suzhou's zero-waste case study will be globally launched on March 30, 2026 (the International Day of Zero Waste) and prominently showcased at commemorative events in New York, Nairobi, and other locations.

（Source: Yinlibo）
Source：iSzhou