India’s Route to Critical Mineral Self-Reliance –A Three Part Blog Series

# 1: Urban Mines, Strategic Gains: Reclaiming Critical Minerals from India’s E-Waste

India faces a dual challenge that few are talking about enough: on one hand, an explosive growth of electronic waste (e-waste), and on the other, complete dependence on imported critical minerals needed for our tech and clean energy future. These two issues might seem separate, but they are deeply intertwined. Addressing them in tandem could turn a looming crisis into a tremendous opportunity.

E-Waste Explosion

India is now the world’s third-largest e-waste generator (only behind China and the US). In fiscal year 2024 alone, we produced about 3.8 million metric tons of e-waste – imagine mountains of discarded phones, laptops, appliances, batteries, all in one year. This volume has nearly doubled in the last decade (from ~2 million tons in FY2014). It’s a staggering byproduct of our tech-savvy, fast-growing economy. Yet, out of this vast stream of electronic waste, only about 15–16% is recycled through formal, scientific means. In other words, over 80% of our e-waste is handled by the informal sector or simply dumped, meaning that valuable materials are lost and toxic pollutants are unleashed. To put it bluntly, we’re throwing away a fortune – literally. One report estimates India’s annual e-waste contains around $6 billion worth of recoverable metals. Yes, $6 billion, sitting in landfills or scrapyards every year! This is why e-waste is often called an “urban mine” – a rich resource if only we can mine it properly instead of treating it as trash.

Environmental & Health Fallout

The low recycling rate isn’t just an economic loss; it’s causing a silent environmental crisis. Improper e-waste disposal means toxic substances pollute soil and water – heavy metals like lead and mercury leach out, and studies have found Indian e-waste hotspots with PCB levels nearly double the global average. In cities, informal burning and acid-stripping of electronics contribute to air pollution; remember, 9 of the world’s 10 most polluted cities are in India, and while vehicles and industry are major culprits, burning e-waste adds poisonous dioxins to that mix. The human toll is heartbreaking: in the informal sector, workers including women and children handle e-waste without protection, exposing themselves to carcinogens and neurotoxins (lead, cadmium, brominated flame retardants – the list is long). We’ve seen scenes of people standing over open fires, extracting copper wires by burning insulation, or dunking circuit boards in acid baths to dissolve metals – “recycling” that trades health for livelihood. Groundwater around dumps gets contaminated with battery chemicals, and communities suffer the consequences. If we continue on this path, the environmental and public health costs will explode as e-waste volumes grow. Simply put, inaction is not an option – ethically or economically.

Critical Minerals: 100% Imported

Now, consider the flip side of this coin – the materials inside all this e-waste. India’s tech boom and green energy goals (like electric vehicles and solar) have created voracious demand for lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths and other critical minerals. Ironically, while we’re drowning in e-waste, we have almost no domestic supply of these minerals. India currently depends on imports for 100% of its lithium, cobalt, and nickel needs. Every lithium-ion battery cell in an EV or smartphone, every bit of cobalt in battery cathodes or aerospace alloys, every gram of nickel in stainless steel – all of it is sourced from abroad. We have zero indigenous production of lithium and cobalt at the moment. This import-dependence is a strategic vulnerability. We’ve experienced oil import crises in the past; now imagine our clean energy transition being throttled by a lithium supply shock or price spike. It’s not far-fetched – demand for these minerals is set to more than double by 2030 globally, and India’s own demand will skyrocket as we push for 30% EV adoption by 2030 and ramp up renewable energy storage. Being 100% import-reliant means we’re at the mercy of global supply chains and geopolitics.

Geopolitical Risk & China’s Dominance

Here’s where it gets even more concerning. The global supply of critical minerals and their processing is heavily concentrated. For instance, China controls around 60–70% of the world’s lithium refining and about 70% of global cobalt refining (not to mention nearly 80% of rare earth element processing). It also produces over 85% of the world’s battery cells and almost all the anodes and a majority of cathode materials for those batteries. In other words, one country dominates the upstream and midstream supply chain for the very minerals and components that make up our smartphones, EVs, and solar panels. This isn’t about pointing fingers at China’s success, but it does pose a huge risk for India. Any hiccup – trade restrictions, diplomatic spats, or even just surging domestic demand in those supplier countries – could choke off our supplies and derail plans from Make-in-India electronics to renewable energy storage deployment. It’s a precarious position: as we try to shift from fossil fuels to clean tech, we might end up trading one dependency for another – from OPEC to a cartel of critical mineral exporters.

A Crisis or an Opportunity?

At first glance, India’s e-waste problem and its critical mineral import problem look like a vicious cycle. We’re dumping or dispersing valuable materials locally, then paying dearly to import the same materials back in refined form. It’s a linear take-make-waste model that’s both economically inefficient and environmentally disastrous. However, this dual challenge hints at a convergent solution: if we can recover the metals from our e-waste and spent batteries, we address both problems at once. Instead of viewing e-waste as “junk,” we can see it as a strategic resource. Think about it: the metals we’re importing (lithium, cobalt, etc.) are literally present in the gadgets and batteries piling up as waste.

Why not mine this urban ore to reduce imports?

This is where the concept of the “urban mine” comes in. Our cities and scrapyards are full of metals—above ground. In fact, some experts point out that urban ores can be far richer than natural ores. For example, 1 ton of discarded smartphones can contain 100 times more gold than 1 ton of gold ore! (Modern electronics pack tiny amounts of precious metals that add up – e.g., the gold in 1 million phones can be 30–40 kg or more.) So, rather than digging up low-grade ore from the earth’s crust, we could “dig” into heaps of e-waste and get higher yields. It’s both astonishing and intuitive: we’ve already done the work of concentrating those metals into devices; the opportunity now is to re-concentrate and reuse them after the devices die.

Turning the Tide – India’s Moment for Circular Solutions

The encouraging news is that India is waking up to these linked issues. The government recently launched a National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM) with a ₹34,300 crore (~$4 billion) outlay to secure supply of critical minerals over the next six years. While a big part of that is investing in exploration and mining (including acquiring stakes in mines abroad), it explicitly includes developing recycling capacity as a strategic pillar. This means policy support and incentives for companies that can extract critical metals from waste. It’s a recognition that recycling and urban mining are essential for self-reliance. Additionally, India’s updated e-waste and battery waste rules enforce Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), requiring manufacturers to take back and recycle a portion of what they sell. This regulatory push is intended to channel more material into formal recycling streams (and away from the informal sector or landfills).

From an economic perspective, experts suggest that with the right infrastructure, recycled materials could meet 25–30% of India’s critical mineral needs in the coming years. Imagine that – nearly a third of our lithium, cobalt, etc. demand could be supplied domestically by recovering the metals we’ve already imported once. That would significantly trim our import bills and buffer us from global volatility. One analysis even estimates that strengthening recycling could cut India’s metal import costs by $1.7 billion while creating a secondary supply equivalent to a large new mine. In essence, every battery or circuit board we recycle is one less that must be mined abroad.

The stage is set for a transformational shift: from a linear economy to a circular economy for electronics and batteries. Instead of being overwhelmed by e-waste, India can become a world leader in e-waste recycling – creating jobs, recovering value, and securing materials in the process. The raw ingredients for success are there: a massive feedstock of e-waste, a growing demand for metals, and now the policy impetus to connect the two. The question is, how do we do it? The answer lies in innovation and new technologies that can efficiently extract metals from waste. That’s where companies like Novasensa enter the story – pioneering the science of urban mining.

In the next part of this series, we’ll explore the solution side: how Novasensa’s hydrometallurgical approach is turning this vision into reality. We’ll see how green chemistry and engineering can mine the urban waste stream, and how this homegrown innovation is poised to make India a circular economy trailblazer. The journey from e-waste avalanche to critical mineral self-reliance has begun, and it’s a story of ingenuity and hope amid crisis.