For decades, India has treated waste as the end of the production cycle. But as the country urbanises, electrifies and digitises, discarded batteries, vehicles, electronics, tyres, plastics and metals are becoming something else: a vast, underused pool of industrial resources. The circular economy is built on a simple proposition ~ materials should remain in productive use for as long as possible, and what is discarded should become an input for what comes next. The opportunity is substantial.

The Economic Survey 2024-25 cited an estimate that greater resource circularity could generate cost savings equivalent to 11 per cent of current GDP by 2030 and 30 per cent by 2050. These are projections, not guaranteed gains, but they illustrate why circularity deserves to be considered an industrial policy issue rather than simply an environmental one. India’s resource challenge is becoming more acute precisely as its industrial ambitions expand. It wants more electronics, vehicles, renewable-energy equipment, batteries, buildings and infrastructure.

Every one of these sectors consumes materials. The question is whether the country’s future demand will be met predominantly by extracting and importing more virgin resources, or increasingly by recovering materials already embedded in the domestic economy. The numbers from India’s waste streams are beginning to make the case. A NITI Aayog assessment from early this year projects e-waste generation to rise from 6.19 million tonnes in 2024 to 14 million tonnes by 2030. The same assessment projects lithium-ion battery demand to rise from 29 GWh in 2025 to 248 GWh by 2035.

End-of-life vehicles are projected to increase from 23 million in 2025 to 50 million by 2030. These are not separate environmental problems, but emerging industrial resource pools. Consider critical minerals. India imports many of the materials needed for advanced electronics, electric mobility and clean-energy technologies. Recycling cannot eliminate this dependence: NITI Aayog itself cautions that recycling will only partially satisfy demand for several battery minerals. But it can create a secondary source of supply, particularly for materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and other strategically important elements. This explains an important policy development in 2025.

The Union government approved a Rs 1,500-crore incentive scheme for........

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