Measuring Zero-Waste City Performance of a Coal Resource-Based Area in China with MCDM Approach

The zero-waste city is one of the most visionary initiatives for solving waste problems by enhancing the life cycle solid waste management system. However, the development level of ZW city construction remains unclear. Resource-based areas tend to produce large amounts of industrial solid waste, and achieving a zero-waste city is difficult due to insufficient resource utilization capacity. This study proposed a practical integrated MCDM approach to assess the performance of the ZW city and applied the approach to a typical coal resource-based province in China. The spatiotemporal characteristics and factors influencing the performance of zero-waste cities in each city were further explored. The performance levels increased during the study period; however, the growth rate of most cities is slow. Spatially, the performance levels of zero-waste cities gradually decreased from south to north, showing a radiation pattern with Taiyuan at its core. Challenges toward zero-waste city development were further identified, including heavy industrial structure, widespread underutilization of industrial solid waste, inadequate management of hazardous solid waste, low rate of urban domestic waste classification, and ineffective treatment. The approach gives a holistic and broader picture of the zero-waste management performance, which enables us to identify the challenges in promoting zero-waste cities.