The Indian Recycling Industry Is Booming. Can It Last?
The industry is currently in the midst of a definitive "up-cycle," driven by momentum that has been carefully built over the last five years.
The Gist
India's recycling industry is experiencing significant growth, driven by rising demand and corporate investment.
- Double-digit growth in the recycling sector is fueled by fluctuating global commodity prices and India's green ambitions.
- Major corporations like Tata and Aditya Birla are integrating recycling into their core business strategies.
- Government incentives and policies, such as the Extended Producer Responsibility, are enhancing the industry's prospects.
India’s recycling industry is currently spoilt for attention. Pick any metric to gauge the growth of the sector, and it points to a double-digit expansion. A mix of fluctuating global commodity prices, a surging demand for critical minerals, and the country’s sharpening green ambitions has built immense interest in the recycling space. Yet, as capital floods into what was once a fringe market, the fundamental question remains — will this momentum sustain?
The industry is currently in the midst of a definitive "up-cycle," driven by momentum that has been carefully built over the last five years. The financial results of early movers are telling.
Jain Resource Recycling, one of the most recent recycler stocks to list on the public markets, has reported a nearly threefold rise in pre-tax earnings between FY23 and FY25. This financial performance is not an outlier but a symptom of a broader structural shift in how India handles its metal waste.
The Up-cycle
The granular data for metal recycling between FY20 and FY25 shows aggressive expansion. Lead sourcing from the secondary market has effectively doubled in the five-year window. Secondary aluminium has grown by another third, and copper has expanded by a quarter.
The story is equally compelling in the case of electronic waste. Industry executives note that sourcing volumes for e-platforms dealing in electronic scrap are doubling month-on-month.
Meanwhile, total volumes for aluminium, lead and copper still remain at a sub-two-million-tonne level. Yet, this has not deterred financial interest. Instead, it has catalysed it, increasing both business investment and legislative action.
Corporate Pivot
In the world of Indian conglomerates, recycling has moved from being a CSR initiative to a core business strategy.
At least three major Indian conglomerates — Aditya Birla Group, Tata and Vedanta Group — have integrated recycling into their primary business model. Tata Steel’s top executive said last year that “the recycling industry will surpass that of mining by 2050”.
These industry heavyweights have either specific divisions or subsidiaries dedicated to retrieving more by-products out of the scrap or leftovers from their metal-making operations.
Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Hindalco Industries took it a step further by spending a whopping Rs 2,000 crore on a copper recycling unit designed to process metals from electronic waste. Company executives noted in November that the project remains on track for a FY27 commissioning.
Industry experts believe that large corporations showing interest in metal recycling is the logical progression.
"The main factor driving it is the need for ESG and carbon reduction,” Mayur Karmarkar, managing director, International Copper Association India, told The Core. “Going forward, the need for ESG compliance as corporates is going to rise, and we will see more interest from large companies across metals into recycling. A short-term reason for interest in scrap recycling is the volatility in supply of the concentrates.”
Capital Flows And Market Valuations
With business interest rising, “wilful money” is pouring into the sector. Private equity and impact funds such as Baring PE Partners, Blue Earth Capital and Circulate Capital, among others, have made investments in Indian dry-waste and e-waste recycling and management companies.
A July 2025 investment trends report by EY Parthenon highlighted the macro drivers: “India’s population growth, rising consumption, and a tripling of equity investments in recycling sectors signal strong private equity potential in waste and circular economy solutions.”
There is also buzz in the IPO market, with Jain Resources listing in October at a 14% premium, aluminium recycler CRM Green Technologies filing for an IPO and multiple smaller recycling companies listing at the SME board.
Growth prospects fuelling these IPO valuations are substantial. EY Parthenon expects the circularity market to reach$500 billion in size by 2030, growing at 15% to 20% CAGR. “The waste management market in India was valued at approximately$32 billion in 2023. It is projected to grow at a modest CAGR of 2.25% through 2028.”
Executives at BigMint, a metal intelligence firm, told The Core that secondary aluminium production capacity stands at roughly 2 to 2.2 million tonnes. This is supported by an expanding scrap collection infrastructure and stricter rules mandating higher recycled content.
Regarding copper scraps, they noted, “Secondary production is expanding rapidly: copper scrap imports saw a ~33% y-o-y increase, supported by better collection networks and lower conversion costs.”
Big Picture Projections
Rating agency Crisil estimates that the secondary copper industry in India has witnessed significant growth driven by a shift toward sustainable practices. The share of secondary copper in the total mix increased from 24% in FY19 to 38% in FY23. It is estimated to have hit 39% in FY24 and is projected to grow to dominate the market at 55% by 2030.
Similarly, Crisil notes that in 2024, India's recycled aluminium markets reached a value of $4,758 million, growing at a CAGR of 14.0% during the 2020-2024 period. It is projected to reach $10,023 million by CY2030, expanding at a CAGR of 12.9%.
Demand for secondary lead has also experienced steady growth, increasing from 0.98 million tonnes in FY 2019 to 1.18 million tonnes in FY 2024—a CAGR of 3.8%.
This upward trend is expected to continue, with demand for lead logging a CAGR of 5.5-6.5% to reach 1.6-1.7 million tonnes by 2030. For e-waste specifically, an Astute Analytica report projects the Indian e-waste management market will reach a valuation of around $5,198.52 million by 2032, growing at a CAGR of around 13.52%.
Policy Push
Over the last decade, the government too has played the role of an accelerator for the sector. Multiple mandates have helped boost growth, the most notable being the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework. The scope of EPR has expanded significantly, now covering sectors as diverse as building and construction materials.
The government has ambitious targets of achieving at least 10% recycled content for aluminium products, 20% for copper and 25% for zinc by FY31.
“Companies cannot import a product or a sub-assembly or a component without EPR compliance. Second, the number of products covered under EPR have increased from 30 to more than 100 products, which again is a big boost that happened the year after. Then after that, the Government of India made a sort of a platform on which OEMs and recyclers can exchange these certificates, bringing more transparency and traceability in the sector,” Nitin Gupta, co-founder and CEO at Attero Recycling, told The Core.
In another significant move in September, the government approved a Rs 1500 crore incentive scheme to develop recycling capacity specifically for the separation and production of critical minerals from secondary sources.
According to a government statement, the incentives are expected to lead to the development of at least 270 kilotonnes of annual recycling capacity, resulting in around 40 kilotonnes annual critical mineral production, bringing in about Rs 8,000 crore of investment.
The Silent Driver
Beyond economics and policy, geopolitics is playing a pivotal role in the recycling boom. Gupta from Attero highlights the global context: “The entire recycling sector is seeing an uptick because of geopolitics, where China, which controls more than 99% of the world's rare earth and critical metals, has taken a very aggressive stand of banning exports of those metals to the US, Europe, and other countries.”
Simultaneously, the European Union, a major market for metal scrap imports into India, is mulling a ban on aluminium scrap exports this year. This is forcing a strategic rethink.
“Every country is basically promoting domestic recycling as a source of these materials and getting independent from China from the raw material supply chain,” Gupta summarises. India also depends significantly on imported technologies for recycling, but the government and organised players are moving to address this through capacity-building incentives and IP-based investments.
A GST Loophole And Structural Headwinds
Despite positive projections, the industry faces structural hurdles. Industry estimates peg 30% of the recycling industry in India as unorganised. This informality creates a significant challenge for GST.
Multiple executives raised concerns that sourcing scrap from the informal market that is not GST-compliant leads to issues with GST credit.
Players like Gupta, who have moved to 100% e-sourcing, argue that a higher GST makes it difficult to compete with the informal sector, which deals primarily in cash and therefore offers different pricing.
Representations are being made to request a GST reduction to 5% from the current 18% for the scrap value chain. Proponents argue that in addition to tax leakage, this would discourage unorganised collection and processing, which contributes to wastage, chemical leaks and other health hazards.
Another challenge highlighted by experts is the flight of processed scrap to foreign markets. "For copper, the larger players in India are looking to process scrap at their smelters," says Karmarkar. "However, they find it difficult to source it as the processed scrap finds better pricing from export markets like China." Karmarkar remains optimistic that this issue will resolve as domestic supply chains strengthen.
Even though threatened by cost competitiveness and an unorganised supply chain, industry watchers remain optimistic. The combination of tax relaxations, government incentive schemes, and the tightening of EPR norms suggests that India’s recycling story is set on a firm growth path.
