India's rare earth rescue: Can e-waste recycling break China's grip?

Time of India

19-07-2025

It has been months since countries across the world are scrambling and huddling together to find a solution for the rare earths crunch imposed by China. For India, the supply bottleneck for rare earths is threatening to put spanner in the 'manufacturing wheel' of the country, as they find usage in every modern industry– from EVs and mobile phones to fighter jets and wind turbines.
However, scaling up the capacity for mining and processing of rare earths is time-consuming as well as energy-intensive activity, impacting India's net-zero targets.
As the government prepares for the scheme for incentivising the production of rare earths magnets while also scouting for the rare earth assets abroad, there is another goldmine that is hard to ignore–and that is e-waste.
According to a Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change report, India produced 1.751 million tonnes of e-waste in 2023-24, third highest in the world. Yet, only 43 per cent of e-waste is processed annually.
Enter private players like Attero India and Lohum who have taken up the gauntlet to address India's challenge in securing its rare earths' future by handling the e-waste, simultaneously fulfilling the goal of a circular economy.
Scaling with Science
With advanced technology at the centre, these private players are scaling up their capacity to meet India's burgeoning demand for rare earths.
Attero India recently announced a ₹100 crore investment to ramp up their rare earths recycling capacity to 30,000 tonnes over the next 12 to 24 months, from the current 300 tonnes.
'For rare earth magnets, our current recycling capacity is 1 tonne per day, which we are scaling to 100 tonnes per day. Our patented technology has a recovery rate of 99.9 per cent for rare earths from the different feedstocks which include materials like batteries, refrigerators, solar panels, EVs, etc,' says Nitin Gupta, CEO, Attero India.
The company has around 47 patents around the world for its recycling technology and more than 200 are already filed.
Another player Lohum, which is primarily a lithium-ion battery recycler, is planning to augment its recycling capacity to rare earth elements like neodymium, lanthanum, scandium, yttrium, cerium, praseodymium, promethium, samarium and europium. Lohum's proprietary NEETM technology is at the heart of its operations, which is a zero-waste and zero-emission process to extract minerals from e-waste.
The company, recently, also held discussions with the Japan delegation which was there in India to explore tie-ups in the battery supply chain and rare earths supply.
More startups are mushrooming in the
e-waste recycling
space like BatX Energies and Metastable Materials; however, they are currently restricted to recycling critical minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel.
Recycling e-waste meets just 1 per cent of the rare earths demand globally, while the estimated economic value of metals in the e-waste is approximately $91 billion, as per the Global E-waste Monitor report, 2024. This means there exists a huge untapped potential in this industry and the emergence of new players is a clear sign that the e-waste recycling industry is increasingly gaining recognition as a bigwig in the global critical minerals and rare earths supply chain.
Does India have the potential to become a global rare earth recycling hub?
The recent chokehold imposed by China presents a unique opportunity for India to up its ante and position itself as a global alternative in the rare earths supply chain– and recycling presents a viable option.
Policy experts and industry leaders argue that India has all the ingredients to position itself as global leader in rare earth recycling.
'It is vital for India to scale up the recycling capacity if we want to reduce our dependence on China for rare earth magnets. With rules like Extended Producer Responsibility, e-waste collection has also started to get a bit streamlined. Moreover, a new crop of startups focused on R&D are already providing the technological maturity to this sector. So, definitely India has the potential to become a global hub of rare earth recycling,' opines Ashim Sharma, Senior Partner & Group Head Business Performance Improvement Consulting (Auto, Engg. & Logistics) - at Nomura Research Institute.
Nitin Gupta of Attero is more optimistic about the future and believes recycling, when scaled up, alone can reduce 60 per cent of our reliance on China for rare earth elements.
Rajat Verma, Founder and CEO of Lohum echoes the same sentiment and adds: 'With continued investment in technology, infrastructure, and formalisation, India can not only reduce its own import dependency but also become a global partner for sustainable critical materials and advanced technology, challenging China's monopolies in the process.' Lohum counts top brands like Mercedes Benz Energy, Ola, Tata, Panasonic among its customers.
India's potential arises from its massive domestic feedstock, with its ambitious target for EV adoption and renewables deployment. Over the years, the government has also taken proactive regulatory measures to support the sector. Moreover, new-age players are pouring in money in R&D to zero in on technology that is efficient and scalable.
'The present technologies in the country show promise and the ability of India to innovate and compete on a global scale,' says
Shubham Vishvakarma
, founder and Chief of Process Engineering at Metastable Materials.
However, the fledgling sector has its own share of challenges.
Global race, local gaps
Worldwide, the rare earth recycling industry is fragmented. While Europe has a strong recycling base in the west; in Asia pacific, it is Japan which is a key player, with companies like Hitachi, Mitsubishi leading the charge.
Policy experts credit the stringent environmental regulations and early government intervention and strong R&D push for catalysing this industry.
In India, the e-waste collection market is still largely informal and there is policy misalignment.
Saloni Sachdeva Michael
, energy specialist, India Clean Energy Transition, at Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) says: 'Despite increasing focus on critical mineral recovery, policy misalignment continues to be a major barrier to scaling up recycling efforts. Until recently, solar panels, batteries, and e-waste were all treated as a single category, despite each requiring distinct recycling processes. Recently, CPCB has released draft guidelines for the safe storage and handling of solar waste, including photovoltaic (PV) panels, which is a welcome move.'
The regulatory framework for managing e-waste in the country comes under e-Waste Management Rules, 2016, while the Central Pollution Control Board is responsible for overseeing the implementation of these rules.
Vitalising the e-waste recycling industry is also an important aspect of the National Critical Mineral Mission, launched in 2025 for strengthening the critical mineral supply chain. However, things are not moving at the pace which would give a fillip to the industry.
The government needs to show a little more swiftness in executing the plans, stresses Nitin Gupta of Attero.
On the other hand, Saloni highlights that significant disconnects still remain, particularly in aligning the roles of various ministries and agencies under the National Critical Mission although it is intended to bridge institutional and regulatory gaps.
These misalignments continue to hamper India's ability to build a sustainable and circular rare earth supply chain.
Reportedly, the government is also working on a PLI scheme for boosting this sector, though the policy corridors have now fallen silent. Given the momentum slowly building up around recycling, isolated efforts would not be enough– there is a need for developing a fully integrated value chain.
'It will not be just recycling that will reduce our reliance on China. We need an entire ecosystem, especially the cell manufacturing business, the cathode active material business. These need to be stitched with the policies and standards of recycled material. The government should take a horizon of 10-15 years to make things work, with a focus on R&D,' says
Vikrant Singh
, CTO and Cofounder, Batx Energies.
The road ahead
In its rare earth journey, India is standing at an inflection point. China's supply squeeze has exposed deep vulnerabilities in its strategic autonomy. But, it is also the time when the focus should shift to homegrown innovation, policy reform and industrial collaboration, where recycling is not just a fringe option, but a strategic shift.