India's billion-dollar e-waste empire

https://restofworld.org/2025/india-e-waste-recycling-electronics/

by Brajeshwar • 11 months ago

120 51 11 months ago

alephnerd9• 11 months ago

E-Waste recycling is a major pillar of India's Critical Minerals Strategy [0][1]

The Indian government explicitly exempted specific types of e-waste from import fees and provided additional subsidies such that such waste would come to India in order to be reprocessed [2]. Additionally, the Indian government is allocating around $200M in subsidies explicitly for companies to import, recycle, and process E-Waste within India [3][4] plus additional funding to add capacity.

These are the exact same steps China took in the 2000s as well with almost the exact same word-for-word criticism [5][6], yet it helped them solidify their REE and Green economy to what it is today.

And this is why rare earth processing left America - it is a VERY VERY VERY dirty industry with very low margins. There is no way to get around treating unskilled workers in this industry as expendables - even safety gear can destroy the margins in this industry.

You need to choose between whether you want sub-$10K EVs and low cost solar panels like in China and India OR strong worker protections in their upstream industries like REE processing. You can only choose one.

That said, for every abusive processor, you have less abusive one's as well [7][8]

[0] https://mines.gov.in/admin/download/649d4212cceb01688027666....

[1] https://primuspartners.in/docs/documents/Final%2020%20Aug_Ra...

[2] https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2112...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity...

[4] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...

[5] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/docum...

[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/asia/18iht-waste.1....

[7] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oesZJxrVgeU&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5t...

[8] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xtj6yy4LIvQ

mschuster91• 11 months ago

There is no way to get around treating unskilled workers in this industry as expendables - even safety gear can destroy the margins in this industry.

Actually, there is. The way is called tariffs - an instrument to offset externalities like environment and labor protection dumping.

alephnerd9• 11 months ago

Hypothetically yes, but in 2025 it is impossible to do so on critical minerals/REEs.

The entire processing chain's IP and production capacity is in Asia. Even in South Korea and Japan, workers in these industries are given third world safety protections with temp workers imported from Vietnam, Indonesia, and poorer areas of China, as was seen with the Hwaseong battery factory fire a couple months ago [0][1]

Throwing environmental and workers rights tariffs on REEs and e-waste processing means the upstream supply chain for the entirety of electronics, automotive, aerospace, and every other manufacturing industry is ground to a halt, and you have to depend on foreign countries anyhow but with even less leverage.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/world/asia/lithium-batter...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/world/asia/south-korea-li...

SR2Z3• 11 months ago

They will also make it so expensive to process e-waste that it would probably end up in a landfill.

goalieca• 11 months ago

You need to choose between whether you want sub-$10K EVs and low cost solar panels like in China and India OR strong worker protections in their upstream industries like REE processing. You can only choose one.

With globalism, we got cheap goods and didn't worry about [domestic] worker safety. But, i don't doubt that innovation will happen if we bring stuff back on-shore. There's no motivation to improve processes and innovate if you can just cheaply externalize everything.

alephnerd9• 11 months ago

I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of HN.

Commenters here both want dirt cheap green tech AND workers rights, but it's a choice between one or the other becuase low margins industries are inherently exploitative, because there are no other levers.

Saying improving processes and innovation is just a "deus ex machina", because any sort of automation depends on these upstream components as well.

I agree that bringing industries back on-shore can help spark innovation, but we also need to be realistic. Most REEs (ignore lithium) just don't exist in large quantities in the US, Canada, or the EU, and we simply cannot onshore EVERY industry, because margins are so low that tariffs don't alleviate them either.

You can't compete when manufacturing in China and India are themselves in the midst of transitioning to automation as well, further driving down margins.

We need to be strategic about the industries we target with tariffs AND incentives, but also recognize that vast swathes of low margins low skill manufacturing and resource processing is never returning to the US unless we adopt the same kind of labor whitewashing practices Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea does [0][1]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/world/asia/south-korea-li...

[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/29/national/probe-...

zdragnar• 11 months ago

And this is why rare earth processing left Americ

Not to mention that it can take 10-30 years to open a new mine, between all the environmental reviews and court challenges.

I'm always amazed that people will prevent mines from opening in the US on environmental grounds, then continue to happily buy 99% of everything from overseas, where the environmental and labor regulations are significantly weaker, and governments even more prone to covering up wrongdoing.

cobbzilla• 11 months ago

You’re surprised by NIMBYism?? It’s everywhere. Find a county where both developers and the populace are welcoming a new factory or other industrial facility — hard to find! Look at housing policy in certain big cities and where rents are skyrocketing while housing unit creation stagnates.

latchkey• 11 months ago

My buddy owned a small motorcycle repair shop in the middle of Saigon. He was on a street full of other similar shops.

The guy next door to him had a small battery recycling shop. They'd sit out on the street in the hot sun, all day long, banging open the batteries with hammers, dust and toxic stuff flying everywhere. Nasty shit, zero concern for health.

I can only imagine this happening on a global scale, with far more toxic substances.

alephnerd9• 11 months ago

Yep. Sadly, this is how manufacturing "actually" works.

Everyone on HN loves to daydream about automated assembly and additive manufacturing, but almost all manufacturing is dependent on dirty industries like oil (fertilizers, textiles, plastics), rare earth elements, coal (steel), and others.

When I'd visit my SO's family back in VN or my extended family back in India, it's easy to see why manufacturing is so cost effective in those countries - the only lever low margins industries have is manpower, and that requires you to devalue life to a certain extent.

This is why my parents and my SO immigrated to America.

the__alchemist• 11 months ago

It depends. China has impressive automation and vertical integration.

SoftTalker• 11 months ago

This was the USA and Britian in their early industrial periods.

Now, oil and gas field work, mining, iron and steel processing, and other raw materials extraction is either automated or high-paying unionized manual labor. The same will happen in other developing economies.

mensetmanusman• 11 months ago

It doesn’t have to be dirty, proper rules have to be made to incentivize solutions that leverage economies of scale.

Politicians gave up and assumed manufacturing can’t be clean so they let good jobs leave while those left behind tended to die of fentanyl shipped in from China.

vladgur• 11 months ago

Tell it to the guy above[0] who is avoiding work travel to the US because “safety, health and freedom”

0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45097234

linhns• 11 months ago

Can confirm this, and as such EV aren’t environmentally friendly at all.

Capricorn2481• 11 months ago

Moreso than regular car batteries?

rwyinuse• 11 months ago

Still better than continuing using fossil fuels and facing unmitigated climate change.

triceratops• 11 months ago

Can confirm, the Deepwater Horizon was actually good for humans and the environment. /s

fujigawa2• 11 months ago

They'd sit out on the street in the hot sun, all day long, banging open the batteries with hammers, dust and toxic stuff flying everywhere. Nasty shit, zero concern for health.

I noped out of a job offer recently where there was mention of occasional travel to India. Out of curiosity I pulled up Google Street View on the conpany's India office and this is basically what I saw. Not for me.

lacy_tinpot• 11 months ago

You noped out because you might have to travel to India?

It just occurred to me that perhaps the world isn't deglobalizing, it's just that America/Americans are deglobalizing. Globalization is here to stay, even increase, with or without American. Unfortunately it seems America is writing itself out of that future.

A bit ironic when we consider that not long ago America forced countries open, to increase trade and globalization. American companies relied on these new markets to sell their goods.

But maybe we no longer have anything to sell to the world.

ReDress• 11 months ago

Andrew has a few videos about waste and the waste industry in countries such as India, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

For instance, in Delhi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fojw7yviYU

qart2• 11 months ago

“Our forefathers did this. … No one else can do it,” he continued. “If someone tried, he will be beaten black and blue.”

It's telling that the journalist did not investigate and elaborate on this. The ancient feudal structures that pervaded India for millennia continue to this day. There is a veneer of democracy, but those who live here know how thin the veneer is. For example, even the choice of ISPs available in some locality is controlled by cartels. If an ISP tries to serve a locality that already has a few ISPs, their cables will be severed and their workers will be beaten up. I am talking about a city with a relatively good police presence. In smaller cities, towns, and villages, many more aspects of business are controlled by feudal structures. Every political party has a hierarchy of feudal structures, and most of them have gang-lords at lower levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Raj

pkphilip3• 11 months ago

This is absolutely true and I am referring to Bangalore - the so-called IT capital of India. Here the Internet access is completely controlled by the mafia. But in a lot of cities, this is not the case.

ngc2482• 11 months ago

what ... I am also a resident of bangalore ... Internet access etc is not controlled by any mafia

India's billion-dollar e-waste empire

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