Why are electronics giants taking India's e-waste rules to court?

• India makes manufacturers pay minimum recycling charge
• Brands seek flexibility to negotiate recycling cost
• Court ruling could shape clean energy transition

NEW DELHI - India's effort to formalise its sprawling electronic waste sector that retrieves valuable critical minerals and rare earth metals from discarded electronics has sparked a legal showdown with some of the world's largest electronics companies.

Samsung, LG, Daikin, Carrier and other producers have sued the Indian government over rules requiring them to increase the proportion of their electronic waste they recycle to 80% by March next year and pay a fixed price to authorised recyclers. The companies argue the rules are costly and difficult to implement.

India is the third-largest producer of electronic waste behind China and the United States, but Delhi wants to recover more critical minerals such as lithium and rare earth metals to power solar panels, wind turbines and batteries.

The legal action brought by the companies has been consolidated into one case and is awaiting its next hearing. 

It raises questions about who will benefit from the shift; manufacturers, licensed recyclers, or the millions of informal workers who have long powered India's electronic waste economy.

What triggered the court battle?

The new rules were issued in 2022, but authorities have only in the last year tightened implementation to make producers recycle electronic waste through government-registered recyclers at a minimum price of 22 rupees ($0.25) per kilogram.

Companies argue this price is "arbitrary" and "anti-competitive", and that it is roughly three to four times higher than what they previously paid.

Research firm Redseer told Reuters that India's recycling rates were still low compared with the United States, where they are up to five times higher, and China, where they at least 1.5 times higher. 

Since 2016, brands could meet Indian recycling targets by trading Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) certificates with other companies or licensed recyclers. This created a flexible market, letting them choose how and where to fulfil their obligations while keeping compliance costs lower. 

Producers are now seeking a return to this system, saying the new rules remove flexibility and increase costs.

The lawsuit by Daikin, LG, Samsung, Carrier, Hitachi and Havells says recycling targets are unrealistic given the limited number of licensed recyclers, especially outside major cities.

What is the government trying to achieve?

The government says the rules are essential for building a formal, traceable recycling industry that can recover critical minerals.

The policy is part of India's $4-billion National Critical Minerals Mission, launched in 2023, which seeks to secure supplies through overseas deals, new domestic mines and by scaling up formal recycling.

The government says the minimum recycling price ensures recyclers are paid fairly, helping expand compliant facilities and reduce reliance on informal workshops that often lack safety standards. 

India's formal electronic waste recovery rate now exceeds 40%, nearly matching that of Europe and the United States, though much of that volume still flows from informal collection networks.

More than 90% of electronic waste collection and dismantling takes place in informal workshops, often by workers without protective gear, for a typical daily wage of 300 rupees ($3.38), before the material is sold to licensed recyclers, according to estimates by Delhi-based non-profit Toxics Link.

What's at stake for India's clean energy and workers?

The court outcome will influence India's electronic waste-to-minerals strategy at a time when countries are competing for these resources.

Mineral access is expected to be discussed at the U.N. COP30 climate summit in Brazil next month.

India could be a test case of whether emerging economies can build cleaner, fairer recycling systems. Sustainability experts caution that while the formalisation of recycling is necessary, it could exclude millions of informal workers who do much of the collection and dismantling and put them out of jobs. 

($1 = 87.9460 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Bhasker Tripathi; Editing by Jon Hemming.)