As global supply chains tighten, India turns to “urban mining” to secure lithium, cobalt and rare earths.
KARNAL, India — Hundreds of discarded batteries rattle down a conveyor belt into a roaring crusher at a remote recycling plant in northern India. What emerges from the other end is not junk, but a fine white powder — lithium.
“White gold,” said the lead scientist at Exigo Recycling’s facility in Haryana, watching trays fill with the final product.
India is betting that mountains of electronic waste — long treated as a pollution problem — could become a strategic asset. By extracting critical minerals from used electronics, the country is seeking to reduce its dependence on imports and strengthen supply chains in an era of global geopolitical tension.
RELEVANT SUSTAINABLE GOALS
A Critical Minerals Race
Global jitters over China’s dominance in critical minerals production have pushed New Delhi to accelerate domestic alternatives. Lithium, cobalt and nickel are essential to smartphones, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence systems and even fighter jets.
Domestic mining, however, is unlikely to deliver meaningful output for at least a decade. In the meantime, India is turning to what experts describe as an overlooked “gold mine”: e-waste.
Dead batteries yield lithium, cobalt and nickel. LED screens contain germanium. Circuit boards hold platinum and palladium. Hard drives store rare earth elements.
India generated nearly 1.5 million tonnes of e-waste last year, according to official data — enough to fill 200,000 garbage trucks — though experts believe the real figure may be twice as high.
Industry estimates suggest “urban mining” — recovering minerals from discarded electronics — could be worth as much as US$6 billion annually. While insufficient to meet projected demand, analysts say it could cushion import shocks and bolster domestic supply chains.
Inside the Recycling Plant
At Exigo Recycling’s facility in Haryana, batteries from e-scooters are processed into a jet-black powder. The material is then leached into a wine-red liquid, filtered, evaporated and refined into lithium.
Raman Singh, managing director at Exigo Recycling, said policy has helped bring scale to the industry. “EPR has acted as a primary catalyst in terms of bringing scale to the recycling industry,” Singh said, referring to Extended Producer Responsibility rules.
India’s government approved a US$170 million programme last year to boost formal recycling of critical minerals. The programme builds on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations that require manufacturers to collect and channel e-waste to government-registered recyclers.
According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, India remains 100 per cent import dependentfor key critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.
Other recyclers are expanding capabilities. Attero Recycling says it can recover at least 22 critical minerals. Nitin Gupta of Attero said that before EPR rules were fully implemented, 99 per cent of e-waste was processed informally. “About 60 per cent has now moved to formal,” he said.
Government figures suggest an even larger shift, though critics question the data because total e-waste generation remains poorly tracked.
The Informal Sector Still Dominates
Despite progress, more than 80 per cent of India’s e-waste is still processed informally, according to an October note from the United Nations Development Programme.
In Seelampur, a low-income neighbourhood in Delhi, narrow alleys overflow with tangled wires and broken devices. Informal workshops dismantle electronics to extract easily saleable metals like copper and aluminium, often leaving critical minerals untapped.
“India’s informal sector remains the backbone of waste collection and sorting,” said Sandip Chatterjee, senior adviser at Sustainable Electronics Recycling International. He noted that much of the e-waste reaching formal recyclers first passes through informal hands.
The gap presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Organised recycling capacity still lags behind China and the European Union, which have invested heavily in advanced recovery technologies and traceability systems. Indian government-backed think tank NITI Aayog has warned that formal recycling trails both policy targets and the rapid growth in waste volumes.
Informal recycling also poses serious environmental and health risks. Open burning, acid baths and unprotected dismantling expose workers to toxic fumes and contaminate soil and water.
Integrating the Informal Workforce
Some initiatives aim to bridge the divide. Ecowork, India’s only authorised non-profit e-waste recycler, is training informal workers and providing safer workspaces.
“Our training covers dismantling and the full process for informal workers,” said operations manager Devesh Tiwari. “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 Ecowork’s facility outside Delhi, 20-year-old Rizwan Saifi carefully dismantled a discarded hard drive, removing a permanent magnet that will be shredded by an advanced recycler to recover dysprosium, a rare earth metal vital to modern electronics.
“Earlier all we would care about was copper and aluminium because that is what was high-value in the scrap market,” Saifi said. “But now we know how valuable this magnet is.”
A Strategic Bet on Urban Mining
India’s pivot to e-waste recycling reflects a broader strategy to secure critical minerals amid rising demand for electric mobility, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing.
While domestic mining remains years away from meaningful production, urban mining offers a nearer-term pathway. The sector’s growth, however, will depend on strengthening formal recycling capacity, improving data tracking and integrating the informal workforce into safer, traceable supply chains.
For a country seeking to reduce import dependence and position itself as a technology hub, discarded electronics may prove to be more than waste. They may become a cornerstone of industrial policy in a rapidly shifting global economy.
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