From Subsidy Dependence to Market-Driven Self-Sustainability: A Dual-Track Flywheel Evolutionary Game of Zero-Waste Supply Chains Under Government Intervention and Supply Chain Finance

Promoting solid-waste resource recovery while reducing long-term reliance on public subsidies is a central challenge for zero-waste cities and the circular economy. This study examines mining-waste recycling in the context of China’s zero-waste city initiative by developing a tripartite evolutionary game involving the government, a supply chain platform, and recyclers and by treating supply chain finance transaction volume as an endogenous state variable that co-evolves with stakeholder strategies. Stability analysis and numerical simulations identify a dual-track flywheel mechanism in which transaction-volume feedback can support an efficient equilibrium through either a market-self-sufficient or a policy-supported regime. Market-driven self-sustainability is therefore treated as a conditional regime requiring both platform profitability and recycler-participation incentives to remain positive after direct subsidies and penalty instruments have been removed, while baseline oversight may continue. Under the tested parameterizations, concentrated early support may help the system cross a critical-mass region more effectively than prolonged weak intervention. Additional withdrawal stress tests show that both subsidy instruments can be removed after ignition while benchmark regulatory instruments remain; when subsidy and penalty instruments are removed together, persistence occurs only under the tested market self-sufficiency conditions. The results highlight the importance of policy timing, transaction records, and financing feedback in reducing policy dependence while sustaining recycler participation.