The Practical Experience of “Zero Waste City” Construction in Foshan City Condenses the Chinese Solution to the Sustainable Development Goals

“Zero Waste City” (ZWC) is an urban development model that minimizes the environmental impact of solid waste at the city level and is a specific practice of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper aims to summarize the key points for realizing the construction of ZWC and the SDGs and make suggestions for promoting the construction of ZWC and forming a Chinese solution for the SDGs. It takes Foshan City, one of the second batch of ZWC pilot projects, as a case study, analyzes the relationship between the construction of ZWC and sustainable urban development from the relevance of the ZWC index system in Foshan City and the SDGs, and analyzes the foundation and problems of its ZWC construction in adjusting the industrial structure and improving the protection system. We find that the concept of the ZWC index system in Foshan City and the SDGs are consistent in the objectives of solid waste, resource utilization, management, sustainability, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. The construction of ZWC in Foshan City is built through two intertwined paths by (1) adjusting the industrial structure of solid waste generation areas such as industrial waste, domestic waste, agricultural solid waste, and hazardous waste and promoting the refinement of the whole industrial chain in these fields and (2) improving the institutional, technical, market, regulatory and other protection systems in the solid waste generation fields. This paper condenses the construction of ZWC in Foshan as a Chinese solution for SDGs, providing a practical example of sustainable transformation for other manufacturing cities, with implications for both China and other manufacturing-oriented cities