With the ever-growing of livestock and poultry breeding (LPB) in China, its environmental problems have become a common concern. Pollution risk, resource potential and related policies evolution are essential to clarify, which is beneficial to better promote sustainable development of the LPB. In this study, a data-set covering the main animals of China's LPB (covering most of staple animals) and through a long period of 1996–2019 is collected. And then, the pollutants load from China's LPB is evaluated based on the new discharge coefficients adopted from recent research. The results show that China's LPB overall exhibits approximately 10-year periodic change in scale. And, the average annual wastes from China's LPB is up to 2.39 billion tons (Bt) and shows a continuing increase trend coupled with two significant declines (2006 and 2017). The mean wastes load of the LPB is 13,037 kg/ha. And, higher wastes load was found in southwestern and coastally eastern China and more attention should be paid to coastally eastern China due to dramatic increase of the LPB. Approximately 160,287 million m³ (M m³) of biogas production potential is estimated and greatest contributor of which is cattle. China's LPB has been experiencing a sharp and profound transition, converting from a traditional breeding pattern to an intensive one causing some serious environmental risks, especially in rural areas. Currently, China's government has built up scientific and sound framework, methods, regulations and laws for the LPB environmental impact assessment and management, covering pollutants disposal, productive process and environmentally monitoring system of the LPB. Considering the coexisted goals of food security, economic development and human's welfare, large-scale, organic and planting-breeding balanced LPB should be largely encouraged. This study has provided a fully-covered and exact evaluation on characteristic, role, function and environmental effects of China's LPB, furthermore raised novel and target-oriented optimizing strategies and key fields, which help to promote sustainable development of China's LPB and lowering environmental risks caused by it in the future.