NEW DELHI, India — A November report from Rocky Mountain Institute says India battery recycling could grow into a $9 billion circular-economy market, create more than 100,000 direct green jobs and, by 2050, supply over 40% of India’s lithium, nickel and cobalt needs. The prize is bigger than waste management: it is mineral security for a fast-electrifying economy — yet gaps in collection, traceability and clean processing remain stubborn, Dec. 20, 2025.
India battery recycling: a $9 billion circular bet with mineral-security stakes
The RMI analysis argues that India battery recycling can capture value across the full life cycle — from reuse and repurposing to end-of-life recovery — as battery demand climbs and domestic supply chains scramble for critical minerals. In its report, RMI’s “Charting a Circular Battery Future in India” pegs the opportunity at about ₹75,500 crore (roughly $9 billion) and projects recycling alone could create more than 106,000 direct jobs while cutting exposure to volatile import markets.
Battery recyclers say the logic is already proven in other metals. “More than 40% of the country’s copper and aluminum needs are met by recycling scrap,” said Rajat Verma, founder and CEO of Lohum Cleantech, in an Associated Press report — and he said the sector wants to replicate that pathway for lithium, cobalt and nickel.
2022 rules set the direction, but enforcement and collection lag
Policy-wise, India battery recycling is no longer voluntary. The government’s Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022 put Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) at the center of compliance, with annual collection-and-recycling targets for producers and importers and a coming requirement to use minimum domestically recycled material in new batteries starting in FY 2027-28, according to a recent Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change statement in Parliament.
The rules are designed to be tracked through a centralized CPCB system, with registrations and certificate exchanges handled through the CPCB’s EPR Battery portal. The government said 4,022 producers and 487 recyclers/refurbishers have registered so far, and that roughly 5.8 million metric tons of battery waste has been recycled since the rules were notified — a figure that reflects all battery types, not just lithium-ion.
Capacity gaps persist: formal plants exist, but feedstock pipelines are leaky
India battery recycling is also struggling with a basic mismatch: plants can be built faster than collection systems can be trusted. The Associated Press reported that India has about 60,000 metric tons of battery recycling capacity, but not all of it is used because supply chains for used batteries and recovered materials are still developing — while informal workers dominate much of the broader recycling economy, often outside formal contracts and safety systems. “You can recycle them for perpetuity,” RMI’s Marie McNamara said, but only if batteries move through cleaner, accountable channels.
Those channels are still uneven, especially for lithium-ion packs that can be hazardous to transport, dismantle and process. Industry executives and experts say the risk is that valuable “black mass” and other outputs will struggle to meet consistent quality standards — limiting offtake from cell makers and slowing reinvestment.
For a detailed look at the market promise and the operational bottlenecks, see the Associated Press reporting on India’s battery recycling push.
Continuity check: the buildout started years ago, and so did the warnings
This moment didn’t appear overnight. In mid-2022, Attero Recycling told Reuters it would pour $1 billion into expansion and raise lithium-ion processing capacity sharply over five years, signaling early confidence that India battery recycling would become a global-scale industry (Reuters, June 2022). Later that year, the company announced an additional plant in Telangana and capacity increases tied to India’s rising EV demand (Reuters, November 2022).
By late 2023, however, analysts were already flagging gaps in rules and economics — including collection leakages and the need for clearer, workable compliance mechanics — in an explainer arguing battery recycling rules needed revamping.
What to watch next: incentives, standards and a real collection network
Looking ahead, India’s broader critical-minerals strategy could determine whether India battery recycling scales from “promising” to “bankable.” Reuters reported earlier this year that India plans incentives tied to recycling 24 critical minerals, with funding earmarked and a push to expand lithium-ion recycling capacity from current levels (Reuters, April 2025).
For now, the sector’s next test is practical: more standardized take-back points, better tracking across the supply chain, cleaner processing that can compete on price, and programs that pull informal workers into safer, formal jobs. Without that, India battery recycling may stay a big idea with small throughput — even as battery demand surges.
