Divya Agarwal
New Delhi [India], December 19: India battery recycling is no longer a niche sustainability idea. It’s turning into a strategic lever for jobs, clean power and economic resilience.
India is racing toward a cleaner energy future, but there’s a catch. Electric vehicles, solar grids and smartphones all depend on minerals India barely mines. Lithium. Cobalt. Nickel.
The country imports most of them. Battery recycling could change that equation.
Over the last decade, a fledgling but serious battery recycling ecosystem has started to take shape across India. The goal is simple. Recover valuable materials from used batteries and feed them back into the clean energy supply chain. Less waste. Fewer imports. More jobs.
India Battery Recycling Boom: It’s a neat idea.
According to a November study by renewable energy think tank RMI, a formal battery recycling industry could create up to 100,000 green jobs in India.
It could meet nearly 40 percent of domestic demand for key battery minerals. The total market value? Around $9 billion as battery demand explodes, largely driven by electric vehicles.
Rajat Verma, founder and CEO of Lohum Cleantech, sees it as inevitable. His Noida-based company manufactures and recycles batteries.
He points out that recycling already supplies more than 40 percent of India’s copper and aluminium needs. Lithium, cobalt and nickel could follow the same path.
The materials make it possible. Unlike plastics, battery metals don’t degrade after repeated recycling. Refine them properly, and they retain strength, performance and value.
Again. And again.
Why India Needs Battery Recycling Now
India is the world’s most populous nation and one of its largest emitters of planet-heating gases. Power demand is relentless. So is the push toward clean energy.
Solar capacity is expanding fast. Electric vehicle adoption is rising.
Smartphones and consumer electronics are everywhere. All of it runs on batteries. And batteries run on minerals India mostly buys from abroad.
Globally, China dominates critical mineral supply chains. Mining. Refining. Processing. The International Energy Agency has flagged this concentration as a strategic risk.
India feels it acutely. The country has no operational lithium mines yet and limited access to other key minerals.
Battery recycling offers a workaround. Recover minerals already inside India’s borders. Keep them circulating. Reduce exposure to geopolitical shocks.
How Battery Recycling Actually Works
A typical electric car battery is massive. Around 1.5 metres long. Up to 400 kilograms in weight. Designed to last 160,000 kilometres, usually over eight to twelve years.
Once it reaches the end of its automotive life, it’s far from useless. Up to 90 percent of its contents can be extracted if recycling is done properly.
There are two main routes. One involves shredding battery modules into fine powder using specialised machinery. Another uses smelting in industrial furnaces.
Both methods are followed by chemical processing, often using acids, to separate lithium, cobalt, nickel and other metals.
There’s also a quieter second-life option. Batteries that still hold charge can be repurposed to store solar or wind energy. Think homes, small shops, microgrids.
The process involves testing, cleaning and refurbishing components before resale.
Done right, it extends battery life and reduces waste. Done wrong, it becomes a hazard.
The Informal Sector Problem
Here’s where India’s reality bites.
India has around 60,000 tonnes of battery recycling capacity today. But much of it sits underused. Supply chains remain fragmented.
Recovered materials don’t always find their way back to factories.
A big reason is informality. An estimated four million workers operate in India’s scrap recycling economy. They handle everything from metals to plastics, often without contracts, training or safety gear. Batteries are just one more item in the pile.
This informality creates gaps. Environmental risks. Lost value. Weak accountability.
India passed battery waste management rules in 2022 to address this.
The regulations mandate safe disposal, collection targets and recycling benchmarks for different battery types. Violators face heavy fines.
On paper, it looks solid. On the ground, implementation has been patchy.
There are no universal drop-off points for discarded batteries. Each producer must build its own collection and recycling system. For many companies, that’s expensive and confusing.
The result is uneven compliance and slow progress.
Jaideep Saraswat of the Vasudha Foundation puts it bluntly.
Policy moved surprisingly fast. Supply chains did not.
Environmental and Safety Risks
Battery recycling is not automatically clean.
If lithium batteries are handled improperly, they can emit carbon monoxide and other hazardous gases. Recycling processes often generate wastewater loaded with heavy metals. Without proper treatment, this contaminates soil and water.
Illegal dumping still happens. Nishchay Chadha, CEO of ACE Green Recycling, warns that weak enforcement allows unsafe practices to persist.
His company operates in India but remains cautious about expansion.
The concern is simple. Clean energy cannot be built on dirty processes.
Formalisation is the Missing Link
Experts agree on the fix. Formalise the sector.
Training programmes could help informal scrap workers transition into safer, regulated jobs.
Government support, at both state and federal levels, could make it easier for companies to hire, train and retain these workers.
Formalisation brings safety standards. Accountability. Traceability. It also unlocks scale.
Marie McNamara of RMI argues that batteries are defined by both their toxicity and their potential. Handle them right, and they power the future.
Handle them wrong, and they poison it.
Learning From China, Carefully
China offers a lesson, though not a perfect template.
Recycling there is taken seriously because it supports the broader supply chain. Even when recycling itself loses money, it strengthens the overall ecosystem.
Profit is made across the value chain, not in isolation.
India shouldn’t rush to copy everything. But ignoring the lesson would be costly. Battery recycling works best when treated as infrastructure, not a side business.
The Road Ahead
Optimism isn’t misplaced. Momentum is real.
India’s clean energy push isn’t slowing. EV adoption is accelerating. Battery demand is climbing fast. Recycling will follow, whether by design or necessity.
Rajat Verma believes India could produce five multibillion-dollar companies in battery recycling if current trends hold. That’s not hype. It’s arithmetic.
Jobs. Mineral security. Cleaner energy. Fewer imports.
This is one of those rare intersections where climate goals and economic logic agree.
Still, the transition won’t be smooth. Policy must catch up to practice. Informal workers need pathways into the formal economy.
Environmental safeguards must be enforced, not just announced.
India’s battery recycling isn’t glamorous. It’s industrial. Messy. Complicated. But it might quietly decide whether India’s clean energy ambitions stand on solid ground or imported crutches.
