E-waste, battery and hazardous waste

Mains

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. Urban mining is recovering them from electronics at the end of life, which 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.
• E-waste recycling could meet 25 to 30 per cent of India's critical minerals needs.

See also: Critical minerals from industrial waste

Mains

The instrument that makes anyone pay for a product once it is thrown away is Extended Producer Responsibility, which moves that cost from the municipality to the producer. A producer is set a recycling target, and how it is allowed to meet that target decides whether the material is really recovered.

• The target is discharged by obtaining certificates from registered recyclers, so the obligation can be settled by the cheapest certificate rather than by the best recovery.
• The opinion piece of 2 September 2026 would have the certificate reward traceability and recovery efficiency instead, so that what a producer buys reflects what was actually recovered.