India’s critical minerals opportunity lies in battery waste | Hindustan Times

Critical minerals are now instruments of statecraft, and so is the waste that contains them. China accounts for more than three-quarters of the world’s capacity to pre-treat battery waste and 90% of the capacity to recover materials from it. The European Union reclassified black mass, the powder left when spent lithium-ion batteries and battery-factory waste are shredded, as hazardous waste in March 2025, with the stated aim of keeping it in the European economy.

The ban was the easy half of the task. The harder half is getting dead batteries out of drawers and discarded devices and into licensed plants, which can return their lithium to electric vehicles, battery cells, energy storage and renewable power. (Shutterstock)Until this week, India allowed black mass generated here to be shipped abroad, even as, the commerce ministry says, domestic recycling plants ran below capacity for want of feedstock and some recyclers had to import material to meet their needs. The Centre had meanwhile committed ₹1,500 crore, through a scheme the Cabinet approved in September 2025, to building more of that capacity. India was exporting a supply of lithium it did not have to mine. By prohibiting those exports, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade has ended a contradiction that should not have lasted.

An outright prohibition is a blunt tool. Shutting out foreign buyers may depress what domestic recyclers pay for black mass and weaken the incentive to collect it, and Indian refiners will have to show they can recover lithium at scale. Neither is a case for reopening the border.

The ban was the easy half of the task. The harder half is getting dead batteries out of drawers and discarded devices and into licensed plants, which can return their lithium to electric vehicles, battery cells, energy storage and renewable power. The International Energy Agency estimates that recycling capacity announced in India would handle only a tenth of India’s battery waste in 2040. There is a lot more to be done to tap into the lithium already in the country.