(Yicai Global) May 29 -- Shanghai is building the world’s biggest bioenergy center, with the first and second phases of the project already in full operation.

When construction of the third phase is completed by May 2025, the project is expected to handle 4,500 tons of wet waste a day, making it the world’s largest wet waste deep recycling base, Chengtou Environment Group said in a press release today. The first two phases can handle 2,500 tons a day.

The Shanghai-based company is responsible for 80 percent of the city’s waste transfer and disposal work and is the largest waste disposal unit in the eastern Chinese metropolis. It has built five wet waste disposal plants, with a handling capacity of 3,530 tons a day, accounting for half of the total wet waste handling capacity in Shanghai.

Shanghai became the first city in China to implement garbage sorting in July 2019. Recycling is an important part of waste handling and the city’s household waste recycling rate should reach 43 percent by the year’s end, the local government said in a document released in March.

Chengtou Environment’s renewable resource recycling system covers the six districts of Jiading, Qingpu, Xuhui, Huangpu, Jing’an, and Pudong, with 5,210 recycling stations.

Editors: Shi Yi, Peter Thomas