Without even realizing it, we use batteries all the time in our daily lives. Whether it is the alarm clock that wakes you up, or the car that drives you to school, or the phone that you use to scroll on TikTok for hours instead of studying for the test tomorrow, batteries are essential. In poorer countries like India, lithium battery use is especially prevalent too. 

India is the third largest producer of e-waste after China and the US, generating 3.8 million metric tonnes solely from lithium batteries. Unfortunately, these batteries only have a life cycle of 5-7 years. Every year, millions of tons of lithium batteries rot in landfills, homes, and even oceans. Yet only 16% are recycled by businesses using proper equipment.

The Surging Problem

There are two major contributors to the mounds of E-waste piling up in India.

1. First is the rising electric vehicle industry. Since India is the third largest automobile market, government think tank NITI Aayog believes that the nation’s supply of lithium batteries will be enough to power around 15 million electric vehicles.  Forty-six percent of India’s recycled e-waste comes from electric vehicles alone. Millions of pounds of E-waste are generated daily from electric vehicles, and most of it goes unrecycled. 

2. Households and businesses can generate unfathomable amounts of e-waste, making up nearly 70% of India’s total e-waste nationwide. Ultimately, around 25% of India’s e-waste remains in homes or ends up in landfills.  In landfills, the toxic chemicals from the discarded lithium batteries seep into the soil, causing severe environmental damage to nearby water sources and ecosystems. Sometimes, built up e-waste can help create devastating fires, like the fire that broke out in April 2024 in a Ghazipur landfill near New Delhi. 

What is preventing India from recycling more E-waste?

1. India's over-reliance on lithium imports costs the Indian government over 2.8 billion dollars each year. Such imports have created an unhealthy dependence on foreign countries like China, which provides 60-70% of India’s lithium imports. As a result, China is able to directly affect India’s policymaking, especially in the area of new, critical mineral policies, thereby reducing its global sovereignty.

2. The current recycling market in India is disorganized. There is little clarity or policymaking by the Indian Government, deciding who is responsible for each step of the battery recycling process.

3. There are few incentives for companies to stop producing e-waste. Over 70% of e-waste is recycled informally, which involves crude methods such as burning and acid leaching that are both inefficient and also hazardous to the environment.

QUICK RUNDOWN - How are lithium batteries recycled?

The various methods for Lithium battery recycling are essentially:

1. Mechanical separation: First, the batteries are crushed and broken down by machinery.
   

2. Pyrometallurgy: Secondly, the crushed metal is heated at a high temperature to separate the metals with higher melting points from those with lower melting points.
   

3. Hydrometallurgy: Thirdly, chemical solutions are used to extract valuable metals from the metallic mass. Most processes involve using strong acids or bases to remove the less precious metals such as iron and aluminum.

So, why bother recycling Lithium Batteries?

1. Lithium batteries contain valuable, rare materials. Currently, the e-waste market in India is 1.1 billion dollars. However, India’s e-waste has the potential to provide an estimated 6 billion dollars  – money that can be accessed if India chooses to allocate more to recycling lithium from the batteries. 
   

2. Focusing on recycling e-waste can also generate thousands of green jobs in the recycling sector, while also reducing dependency on lithium batteries imports from foreign countries by 1.7 billion dollars. 
   

3. Methods for recycling e-waste are often eco-friendly. Recycling e-waste only releases small amounts of gas, far less than the footprint of India’s vehicles. India could also further invest in natural, eco-friendly acids to break down the metals in the hydrometallurgy process. Citric acid is not only a sustainable method of leaching, but it also results in a 95-99% precious material recovery. 

What action is India taking?

In 2021, the Indian Government spent 3 billion dollars to both invest in advanced automotive products and provide incentives for businesses to meet specific performance targets. Government policies, such as the Extender Producer Responsibility framework in 2011, are now helping to regulate e-waste by requiring electronic manufacturers to collect and recycle a certain percentage of products they sell. In the future, they hope to increase minimum recycling fees as well as awareness. Private companies and research institutions are also helping to recycle e-waste, with the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras working to develop a methodology to extract materials from different battery chemistries with a 90-95% recovery level. However, India needs to impose tougher sanctions on manufacturers and consumers to ensure compliance with e-waste regulations.