Ultimate Recycling Plant Monument Unlock Guide (Cities: Skylines)

The Ultimate Recycling Plant is a monument that comes with Cities: Skylines’ Green Cities DLC.

To unlock the Ultimate Recycling Plant, you need to reach the Megalopolis milestone and unlock all 9 map tiles, along with unlocking these six unique buildings:

• Bird and Bee Haven
• Climate Research Station
• Lungs of the City
• Floating Gardens
• Ziggurat Garden
• Central Park

All 6 unique buildings listed above also require the Green Cities DLC.

Once you have unlocked and built all of those buildings, you will be able to build the Ultimate Recycling Plant from the Monuments menu for ₡750,000.

Like its name suggests, the Ultimate Recycling Plant serves as a recycling facility with a massive processing capacity. It has a processing capacity of 480,000 units of garbage per week, which is massive compared to the 24,000 unites of the regular recycling centers.

In this guide we’ll cover a quick overview of how to unlock each of the buildings required for getting your Ultimate Recycling Plant!

Bird and Bee Haven

The Bird and Bee Haven requires you to have 5,000 squares of self-sufficient building specialization built.

Self-sufficient buildings is a residential specialization that comes with the Green Cities DLC. With this specialization your district will produce 30% less garbage and require 30% less power, but also produce 30% tax income.

Here’s how to apply this specialization:

Step 1: Go to Districts and Areas and select the Paint District Tool.
Step 2: Paint over the area that you want to be covered by this specialized district.
Step 3: Go to the Residential Specializations tab and select “Self-Sufficient Buildings”
Step 4: Click on the district you’ve created to apply it.
Step 5: Click on Zoning Tools and zone residential (both low- and high-density will work)

Note: If you apply this to parts of your map that already have existing (non-specialized) residential buildings, those will be torn down to be replaced with specialized ones.

Climate Research Station

The Climate Research Station requires you to have 5,000 squares of farming specialization.

Farming specialization can be applied to industrial zones so that farm buildings grow on them instead of generic factories.

Farming industry buildings do not cause ground pollution like generic industry does, but they do require more water.

Here’s how to get started building with the farming specialization:

Step 1: Find the fertile land on your map by clicking on Resources view from the info views panel.
Step 2: Using the Paint District tool, paint over the fertile land that you want to have farming industry buildings on.
Step 3: Go to the Industrial Specializations tab and select “Farming Specialization”
Step 4: Click on the district you’ve created to apply it.
Step 5: Click on Zoning Tools and zone industrial (yellow).

Lungs of the City

Unlocking the Lungs of the City only requires you to build seven different types of parks or plazas.

Among the 6 unique buildings for the Ultimate Recycling Plant, this is the easiest to unlock unless your city is very strapped for cash.

Below is a list of the parks and plazas that you can choose from.

Parks To Build

Plazas To Build

*You’ll need to have a Paradox account to obtain these.

Floating Gardens

Unlocking the Floating Gardens requires you to have 5,000 squares of organic and local produce specialization.

Organic and Local Produce is a commercial specialization that comes from Green Cities.

Commercial buildings with this specialization:

• Produce 50% of its goods on-site (thereby producing less traffic from delivery)
• Consume 20% more electricity
• Produce 20% less garbage

Here’s how to apply it:

Step 1: Go to Districts and Areas and select the Paint District Tool.
Step 2: Paint the area where you want these specialized shops to be.
Step 3: Go to the Commercial Specializations tab and select “Organic and Local Produce”.
Step 4: Click on the district you’ve created to apply it.
Step 5: Click on Zoning Tools and zone commercial (both low- and high-density will work)

Ziggurat Garden

The Ziggurat Garden simply requires you to place 30 instances of parks or plazas.

Unlike with the Lungs of the City, these 30 can be multiple instances of the same park or plaza type.

These are the cheapest options, both costing only ₡1,000 each:

• Small park
• Paradox Plaza

Of course, if you’re trying to unlock the Lungs of the City as well, you’ll want at least 7 different types to be built at least once anyways.

Central Park

To unlock the Central Park, you must have your parks and plazas visited by 5,000 people in total.

Here are some tips for getting more foot traffic to your parks:

Tip #1: Place parks near residences

It’s always a good idea to place your parks and plazas near residential zoning.

For one thing, parks and plazas raise the land value of surrounding areas (helping residential buildings level up and generate more tax income.)

Also, your parks and plazas are more likely to be visited if they’re a short walk, bike, or drive away. Putting them within walking distance also means less road traffic, which is always a bonus.

Tip #2: Provide public transportation stops near the parks

Having public transport options like a bus/tram stop, or a metro/monorail station near your parks and plazas can also make them much more convenient to visit.

Tip #3: Have intercity mass transport

Parks and plazas are also popular with tourists.

Having mass transport going into your city (e.g., intercity bus, trains, or cruise ships) can boost your visitor numbers as tourists can come into your city en masse rather than having to drive in individually.

Pair this with Tip #2 by having local transport stations a quick walk away from your intercity transport hubs, and you’ll soon have tourists flocking to your parks and plazas.

Reaching the Megalopolis Milestone

Monuments may only be built upon reaching the last population milestone of the game, Megalopolis.

Depending on the map, this can be between 20,000 and 90,000 citizens.

Generally, the more buildable land a map has, the higher the required population is per milestone.

Unlocking 9 Tiles

Without mods, the game starts with a single tile and allows you to expand to 9.

You unlock each of the 8 remaining tiles at different milestones:

Each time you hit one of these milestones, you can choose a new tile to purchase by going to the Areas panel.

Note that you may only purchase a tile that is adjacent to any of the ones you already own. And each succeeding tile is also more expensive than the previous one.

Tile prices can also vary depending on the map and the amount of buildable land.

Extra Tips for Unlocking the Ultimate Recycling Plant

Tip #1: Work towards the Bird and Bee Haven, Climate Research Station, and Floating Gardens concurrently

These three unique buildings require growing specialized zones for residential, industrial, and commercial respectively.

Your zones will only grow if there’s demand for the particular zone type.

Demand for zoning is generally a balancing act; trying to zone too much of one zone type will mean you run out of demand for it.

For instance, if you zone too much residential at a time while neglecting industrial and commercial growth, people won’t want to move into your city as there are no workplaces.

It’s always good to keep this balancing act in mind, and pay attention to your demand bars to make sure none of your zone types are lacking.

In the case of this unlock, growing your self-sufficient homes alongside your farming specialized industry and organic and local produce commercial buildings can help keep your demand balanced.

Tip #2: The Lungs of the City, Ziggurat Garden, and Central Park build paths work great together

You’ll need 7 different types of parks and plazas for the Lungs of the City.

This means you’ll need to build only 23 more instances of a park or plaza to unlock the Ziggurat Garden.

Of course, building that many parks and plazas will help you significantly towards achieving the 5,000 visitor count for Central Park.

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Liz Villegas

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Liz is a writer and photographer with a love for building and strategy games. Her spare time is often split between lifting, reading, drawing, annoying her dog Mr. Porky Butt, and squinting at stat tables on the wiki pages of whatever game she's currently playing.

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