High revenues, low power bills put India’s e-waste recycling under cloud

India’s e-waste recycling industry is booming. But projections show that even by 2035, it will process only 40 percent of the country’s waste mountain.

Recycling, after all, is an energy-hungry business — shredding, sorting, melting and refining machines run round the clock, burning through at least Rs 120 worth of electricity per metric tonne of waste.