Environment and Disaster Management › Waste and circular economy

E-waste, battery and hazardous waste

Electronic, battery and hazardous waste: recovering metals from old electronics, biomedical waste, ship breaking and the trade in waste. Prelims has asked which substances are released into the environment when old computers are disposed of carelessly.

Foundation note: Extended producer responsibility across the waste rules

UPSC has asked

Prelims 2013: chromium and other metals released as e-waste

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Urban mining

Mains

Urban mining is recovering metals and critical minerals from electronics at the end of life.

A discarded computer holds metals and critical minerals in concentrations a miner would be pleased with, and they have already been dug out of the ground once.
That makes the fate of an old machine a resource question before it is a disposal one.
A tonne of metal recovered here is a tonne not mined from a fresh ore body and not bought from an exporting country.
How much of it is recovered depends on the process the material reaches, and advanced recycling has not become the default in India.
The reason lies in how e-waste decisions are costed, on the producer's side and on the buyer's.

What changed

2 Sep 2026
- E-waste recycling could meet 25 to 30 per cent of India's critical minerals needs.
- Life cycle costing prices what a machine will cost to run and to dispose of, not only what it costs to buy.
- Value based procurement lets a buyer weigh that whole life figure against the quoted price, which lowest cost buying does not allow.
The Hindu, 2 Sep 2026: The two balance sheets behind every e-waste decision (opens in a new tab)