The 2026 National Ecological and Environmental Protection Conference set out to deepen the Clean Water campaign, focusing on continuous improvement of water environment quality and introducing a series of targeted policies to drive high-quality development in water treatment. As environmental regulation intensifies, regions are issuing stricter discharge standards and water environment rules. Effluent limits for municipal wastewater treatment plants are tightening further, gradually aligning with Class IV surface water standards, and upgrading of ageing processes is now urgent. Most municipal plants in China still use conventional quartz sand filtration, which struggles with suspended solids, total phosphorus compliance, high O&M energy use and large sludge volumes. It can no longer meet the new requirements, and upgrades across the board are accelerating.

At the same time the state is strongly promoting wastewater resource recovery as a key measure to ease water scarcity and support green, low-carbon development. Water-scarce cities are required to reach a reclaimed water utilisation rate of at least 25%, with higher standards for key basins such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Yangtze River Delta. Applications for reclaimed water — industrial reuse, ecological river replenishment, landscape irrigation and municipal miscellaneous use — continue to broaden, and market demand keeps climbing. Rural water environment improvement and advanced industrial wastewater treatment also benefit from policy support, pushing the industry from “end-of-pipe treatment” towards “source prevention and recycling”. The sector is advancing steadily towards precise pollution control, low-carbon operation and resource circulation — opening broad market opportunities for environmental technologies and products such as new filtration media and high-efficiency purification systems, and driving further technology iteration.