Editor’s Note
This article highlights significant industry skepticism regarding a new government incentive scheme for critical minerals recycling. Key concerns center on structural challenges within India’s informal e-waste collection networks and underdeveloped supply chains, which recyclers argue could undermine the policy’s goal of building a domestic extraction ecosystem.
Critical minerals recyclers are cautious about the prospects of the newly announced incentive plan for the sector. Players say the informal e-waste collection system and the lack of a supply chain can hinder the government’s plan to establish a robust critical mineral extraction ecosystem in the country. The mines ministry recently announced ₹1,500 crore sops for recycling of critical minerals. The scheme provides a maximum incentive of ₹50 crore to eligible firms.
According to Ravi Kumar Neeladri, CEO at Pegasus Waste Management, over 90% of black mass—a powder extracted during battery recycling and containing metals such as copper, magnesium and cobalt—is currently exported in some way or the other, thus losing all the critical metals extraction in the country. But the critical mineral recycling scheme can lead to roughly half the country’s black mass output to be processed to extract the critical metals within the country in the next two to three years.
The critical mineral recycling scheme is expected to spur the extraction of crucial elements such as lithium, nickel and cobalt from end-of-life batteries and gadgets. Recyclers expect the nascent industry to build capacity to meet at least 50% of the country’s demand for critical minerals through recycling and extraction over the next decade.
Sector watchers also say the absence of technology and a skilled workforce are bigger challenges.
