Inside India’s Urban Mining Revolution
Hundreds of discarded batteries rattle along a conveyor belt into a crusher at a remote plant in northern India, fuelling a multi-billion-dollar industry that is bolstering the country’s geopolitical ambitions. At Exigo Recycling’s sprawling facility in Haryana state, a machine churns the batteries from e-scooters into a black powder. The material is then leached into a dark red liquid, filtered, evaporated and finally transformed into a fine white powder that facility scientists call white gold. The substance is lithium carbonate, a critical mineral for which India currently maintains complete import dependency.
As global competition intensifies for resources needed to manufacture everything from smartphones to fighter jets and electric cars, New Delhi is increasingly looking toward its own swelling mountains of electronic waste as a strategic solution. India generated nearly 1.5 million tonnes of e-waste last year according to official data, though experts believe the real figure could be twice as high. This waste stream contains concentrations of precious metals that often exceed those found in commercial mining operations. One tonne of computer scrap contains more gold than 17 tonnes of gold ore, while mobile phones carry five to ten times more gold than traditional ores. Circuit boards hold platinum and palladium; LED screens contain germanium; hard disks store rare earths. Industry estimates suggest urban mining, the recovery of minerals from discarded electronics, could generate up to $6 billion annually.
Geopolitical Imperatives and the Quad Alliance
The urgency behind India’s e-waste push stems from acute vulnerabilities in global supply chains. China currently dominates processing and refining of critical minerals, controlling approximately 75 percent of global pretreatment capacity and 70 percent of material recovery capacity for batteries. This concentration has triggered anxiety across capitals worldwide, particularly as demand for lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements is expected to quadruple by 2040 as nations transition to green technologies and upgrade defence systems.
In response, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the United States launched the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative in July 2025. Following the 10th Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Washington, the alliance announced specific cooperation on electronic waste critical minerals recovery and reprocessing. The initiative aims to secure and diversify supply chains while reducing dependence on concentrated sources. The partnership will expand cooperation on supply chain resilience measures and coordinate with private sector partners to facilitate increased investments.
India’s participation in this alliance complements its domestic National Critical Minerals Mission, launched in 2023 with an outlay of approximately $4 billion. The mission targets overseas deals, new domestic mines, and scaling up formal recycling. Under this umbrella, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government approved a Rs 1,500 crore incentive scheme last year specifically to boost formal recycling of critical minerals from secondary sources including e-waste, used lithium ion batteries, and catalytic converters from discarded vehicles.
The Formal and Informal Divide
Despite policy momentum, India’s e-waste ecosystem remains sharply divided between regulated facilities and unregulated workshops. More than 90 percent of electronic waste collection and initial dismantling still occurs in informal workshops, often by workers earning typical daily wages of around Rs 300 without protective gear, according to estimates by Delhi-based non-profit Toxics Link. In Seelampur, an impoverished Delhi neighbourhood housing one of India’s largest informal e-waste hubs, narrow alleys spill over with tangled cables and broken devices where approximately 50,000 workers process northern India’s waste streams.
Shabbir Khan, a local trader, described the persistent flow of materials through informal channels.
The new companies just keep enough for certification, but the rest still comes to us. Business has increased, not gone down.
His observation reflects a complex reality: even material that eventually reaches formal recyclers often passes through informal hands first, leading to significant loss of critical minerals at early sorting stages. Sandip Chatterjee, senior adviser at Sustainable Electronics Recycling International, noted that India’s informal sector remains the backbone of waste collection, but integration into traceable supply chains could substantially reduce mineral losses.
Informal processing methods carry severe environmental and health costs. Workers employ open burning, acid baths and unprotected dismantling, exposing themselves to toxic fumes including lead, cadmium, mercury and dioxins while contaminating soil and water systems. Research indicates that informal recycling typically recovers only 20 to 40 percent of precious metals while completely destroying rare earth magnets and other high-value materials through physical damage and chemical contamination.
Ecowork, India’s only authorised non-profit e-waste recycler, is attempting to bridge this gap through training and safe workspaces. Operations manager Devesh Tiwari explained their educational approach.
Our training covers dismantling and the full process for informal workers. We tell them about the hazards, the valuable critical minerals, and how they can do it the right way so the material’s value doesn’t drop.
At its facility, workers like 20-year-old Rizwan Saifi now extract permanent magnets from hard drives, materials previously discarded because only copper and aluminium were considered valuable in scrap markets. These magnets contain dysprosium, a rare earth metal essential to modern electronics.
Legal Challenges to Recycling Mandates
India’s push to formalise e-waste recycling has triggered significant legal opposition from major electronics manufacturers. Samsung, LG, Daikin, Carrier, Hitachi and Havells have sued the Indian government over Extended Producer Responsibility rules requiring them to recycle 80 percent of their electronic waste by March 2026 and pay a fixed minimum price of Rs 22 per kilogram to authorised recyclers.
The companies argue this price is arbitrary and anti-competitive, roughly three to four times higher than previous rates, and that targets are unrealistic given the limited number of licensed recyclers outside major cities. Previously, manufacturers could meet obligations by trading EPR certificates with other companies, creating a flexible market. The new rules remove this flexibility, prompting fears that compliance costs could disrupt operations. The lawsuit has been consolidated into one case and is awaiting its next hearing.
The court outcome will influence India’s electronic waste-to-minerals strategy significantly. The government maintains that the minimum pricing ensures recyclers are paid fairly, helping expand compliant facilities and reduce reliance on informal workshops. However, sustainability experts caution that formalisation could exclude millions of informal workers without proper transition mechanisms, undermining both social equity and the effective collection networks that currently handle most of the country’s waste.
Technical Gaps and International Benchmarks
India’s formal recycling capacity remains limited compared to China and the European Union, both of which have invested heavily in advanced recovery technologies and traceability systems. Currently, much of the valuable black mass, a powder containing metals like lithium, cobalt and nickel, is exported due to insufficient domestic processing capability. Only a small number of companies in India currently operate complete end-to-end recycling systems capable of converting battery scrap into refined metals.
International Energy Agency projections indicate that by 2040, India will achieve only 10 percent coverage of available battery recycling feedstock, compared to 30 percent in Europe and North America. China recently announced the formation of China Resources Recycling Group Ltd., a state owned enterprise dedicated to recycling end of life batteries and e-waste, consolidating its dominant position. Global recycling capacity is expanding rapidly, led by China, which accounted for 80 percent of new pretreatment and material recovery capacity in 2023.
To address these gaps, the Ministry of Mines is collaborating with research institutions including IITs and CSIR laboratories, which have developed indigenous hydrometallurgical processes for metal recovery and purification. These institutes are also providing training in mineral extraction and processing. The recent removal of customs duty on lithium ion battery scrap in the 2025-26 Union Budget is expected to facilitate imports of such material, expanding recycling opportunities over the next four to five years while domestic capacity scales up.
Budget Demands and Strategic Goals
As India prepares its Union Budget for 2026-27, industry bodies are demanding targeted fiscal incentives to accelerate critical mineral recovery. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry has recommended launching a dedicated India Critical Minerals Tailings Recovery Programme, treating tailings recovery as a strategic priority with dual funding windows for quick field pilots at active mine sites and technology demonstration projects focused on hydrometallurgy and advanced separation.
Recyclers specifically seek reduction of GST on battery scrap and mineral-bearing waste from current rates to 5 percent, alongside imposition of basic customs duty on intermediates such as nickel and cobalt sulphates to prevent import-led under-utilisation of domestic capacity. Nitin Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of Attero Recycling, which claims capability to recover at least 22 critical minerals, emphasized the strategic imperative.
Recycling today is about more than sustainability; it is about material security.
The stakes extend beyond economics. Commentators note that the oil shocks of the 1970s taught India that management without measurement creates vulnerability. Today, minerals occupy the structural position that oil once held, but across more sectors with longer lasting consequences. With e-waste volumes projected to reach 5 million tonnes by 2030, India’s ability to transform its scrap into strategic resources will determine whether it can secure the material foundations for its $500 billion electronics manufacturing ambition and its broader clean energy transition without leaving millions of informal workers behind.
Key Points
- India generates 1.5 to 1.75 million tonnes of e-waste annually, with potential to recover lithium, cobalt, rare earths and precious metals worth up to $6 billion through urban mining
- The Quad Critical Minerals Initiative launched in July 2025 specifically includes cooperation on e-waste critical minerals recovery to reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains
- Major electronics manufacturers including Samsung and LG are suing the government over Extended Producer Responsibility rules mandating 80 percent recycling rates and fixed minimum prices per kilogram
- Over 90 percent of e-waste collection and dismantling still occurs in the informal sector, where workers earn approximately $3.38 daily without protective equipment or safety standards
- India has approved a Rs 1,500 crore incentive scheme to boost formal recycling, with grants capped at Rs 50 crore for large recyclers and Rs 25 crore for smaller operations
- International Energy Agency projections indicate India will achieve only 10 percent battery recycling coverage by 2040, significantly below European and North American benchmarks
- Industry demands for Budget 2026 include reducing GST on battery scrap to 5 percent and establishing a dedicated tailings recovery programme to unlock minerals from mine waste
