NDRC Issues 15th Five-Year Plan for Circular Economy, Targets 8 Trillion Yuan by 2030

Recycling one tonne of spent power batteries yields 200 to 300 kilograms of metals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt, while extracting the same amount from virgin ore requires 20 to 30 tonnes of ore and generates energy consumption and emissions in the process. Circular economy is centred on efficient resource use and recycling, following the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle to create a closed-loop model of resource–product–renewed resource. In 2025, main resource productivity was about 77% higher than in 2012, while energy and water consumption per unit of GDP fell sharply.

The National Development and Reform Commission recently issued the 15th Five-Year Plan for Circular Economy Development, setting a target for the resource recycling industry to achieve an output value of RMB 8 trillion by 2030 and for main resource productivity to rise by about 16% from 2025 levels. The plan includes a section on improving the recycling system for the so-called new three categories of solid waste—spent power batteries, decommissioned wind turbines and retired photovoltaic panels—and addresses the recycling gaps in these categories.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China will enter a phase of large-scale decommissioning of the new three categories of equipment. While the recycling network for waste products and equipment is improving, the standardisation of recycling practices needs to be enhanced, and there are still gaps in pollution control technical specifications for the new three categories. In response to the long-standing problem of missing paying entities for wind and solar equipment recycling, the plan requires that retired equipment be handed over to qualified circular economy enterprises for proper disposal, helping to establish a commercial closed loop that internalises costs from the source.

In practice, some companies reuse old batteries for backup power in communication base stations after precise testing and sorting, while others use artificial intelligence algorithms to assess battery health, significantly reducing testing costs. Embedding digital and intelligent tools into the recycling, tracing and processing stages helps drive the development of the circular economy industry into a new sector with high-tech attributes.