5 ms·

India's billion-dollar e-waste empire

120 points by Brajeshwar 1y ago

alephnerd 1y 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.pdf https://mines.gov.in/admin/download/649d4212cceb01688027666.... [1] - https://primuspartners.in/docs/documents/Final%2020%20Aug_Rare%20Earth%20Magnets%20TL%20v3.pdf https://primuspartners.in/docs/documents/Final%2020%20Aug_Ra... [2] - https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2112232 https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2112... [3] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity/india-formalise-incentives-critical-minerals-recycling-this-year-sources-say-2025-04-08/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity... [4] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/india-incentives-critical-minerals-recycling-final-stages-approval-government-2025-06-06/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat... [5] - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/ewaste_feb1.pdf https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/docum... [6] - https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/asia/18iht-waste.1.8374259.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/asia/18iht-waste.1.... [7] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oesZJxrVgeU&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5tD https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oesZJxrVgeU&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5t... [8] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xtj6yy4LIvQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xtj6yy4LIvQ
- mschuster91 1y 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.
  - alephnerd 1y 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-battery-fire-south-korea.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/world/asia/lithium-batter... [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/world/asia/south-korea-lithium-battery-fire.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/world/asia/south-korea-li...
  - SR2Z 1y ago
    They will also make it so expensive to process e-waste that it would probably end up in a landfill.
    - HPsquared 1y ago
      That's less bad.
    - privatelypublic 1y ago
      It already does, and arguably should.
      - 1y ago
tomdickandharry 1y ago
[dead]
latchkey 1y 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.
- alephnerd 1y 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 1y ago
    It depends. China has impressive automation and vertical integration.
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      You cannot decouple labor and environmental abuse from low margins industries that are upstream of high value manufacturing, even in China. Every one of those automotive robots uses chips that contain REEs that is heavily sourced from Myanmar (a country in a state of civil war) and processed in poorer Chinese provinces like Yunnan and Guangxi. The steel used to build the casing for those robots will have been forged using metallurgical grade coal that (best case) was sourced from Australia's Carmichael coal mine who's operator has evaded paying taxes and overriden Australia's labor unions with the full backing of both parties. Even today, the median household disposable income in China is in the $300-400/mo range [0], and labor abuse remains a problem in much of industrial China [1] But that's the only way you can build stuff. Commodities are inherently commodified (it's in the name) - you cannot manufacture without commodities upstream. You will always need plastics, steel, coal, rare earth minerals, etc so someone will always be commodified (or synonym - exploited). [0] - https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202504/t20250425_1959460.html https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202504/t202504... [1] - https://www.somo.nl/the-hidden-human-costs-linked-to-global-supply-chains-in-china/ https://www.somo.nl/the-hidden-human-costs-linked-to-global-...
ReDress 1y 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fojw7yviYU
qart 1y 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Raj
- pkphilip 1y 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.
  - ngc248 1y ago
    what ... I am also a resident of bangalore ... Internet access etc is not controlled by any mafia
    - shufflerofrocks 1y ago
      Then you should take a better look. Each local ISP has their own self-designated territory or "area". They don't let any other ISPs establish themselves in their areas, beating them up or cutting their wires if they try - you can talk to any ISP technician and they'll tell you about it. 90% of the fluctuations in network are from a cable cut, often by competing agencies. It's also one of the big reasons why AirFibre is becoming more prominent - can't cut cables if there are no cables. The above commentor uses "mafia" not in the literal sense but he's talking about the mafia-like system where each ISP has territories they fight over. Tbh, it's manageable in Bangalore, since the territories are already established and there's not much interference but much more horrible in other areas - we had to suffer with a shitty ISP in my hometown for years bc they kept cutting cables & bullying any other ISP that tried to come in.

120 points by Brajeshwar 1y 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.pdf https://mines.gov.in/admin/download/649d4212cceb01688027666.... [1] - https://primuspartners.in/docs/documents/Final%2020%20Aug_Rare%20Earth%20Magnets%20TL%20v3.pdf https://primuspartners.in/docs/documents/Final%2020%20Aug_Ra... [2] - https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2112232 https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2112... [3] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity/india-formalise-incentives-critical-minerals-recycling-this-year-sources-say-2025-04-08/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity... [4] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/india-incentives-critical-minerals-recycling-final-stages-approval-government-2025-06-06/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat... [5] - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/ewaste_feb1.pdf https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/docum... [6] - https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/asia/18iht-waste.1.8374259.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/asia/18iht-waste.1.... [7] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oesZJxrVgeU&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5tD https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oesZJxrVgeU&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5t... [8] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xtj6yy4LIvQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xtj6yy4LIvQ

mschuster91 1y 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.
- alephnerd 1y 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-battery-fire-south-korea.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/world/asia/lithium-batter... [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/world/asia/south-korea-lithium-battery-fire.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/world/asia/south-korea-li...
- SR2Z 1y ago
  They will also make it so expensive to process e-waste that it would probably end up in a landfill.
  - HPsquared 1y ago
    That's less bad.
  - privatelypublic 1y ago
    It already does, and arguably should.
    - 1y ago

tomdickandharry 1y ago

[dead]

latchkey 1y 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.

alephnerd 1y 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 1y ago
  It depends. China has impressive automation and vertical integration.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    You cannot decouple labor and environmental abuse from low margins industries that are upstream of high value manufacturing, even in China. Every one of those automotive robots uses chips that contain REEs that is heavily sourced from Myanmar (a country in a state of civil war) and processed in poorer Chinese provinces like Yunnan and Guangxi. The steel used to build the casing for those robots will have been forged using metallurgical grade coal that (best case) was sourced from Australia's Carmichael coal mine who's operator has evaded paying taxes and overriden Australia's labor unions with the full backing of both parties. Even today, the median household disposable income in China is in the $300-400/mo range [0], and labor abuse remains a problem in much of industrial China [1] But that's the only way you can build stuff. Commodities are inherently commodified (it's in the name) - you cannot manufacture without commodities upstream. You will always need plastics, steel, coal, rare earth minerals, etc so someone will always be commodified (or synonym - exploited). [0] - https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202504/t20250425_1959460.html https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202504/t202504... [1] - https://www.somo.nl/the-hidden-human-costs-linked-to-global-supply-chains-in-china/ https://www.somo.nl/the-hidden-human-costs-linked-to-global-...

ReDress 1y 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fojw7yviYU

qart 1y 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Raj

pkphilip 1y 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.
- ngc248 1y ago
  what ... I am also a resident of bangalore ... Internet access etc is not controlled by any mafia
  - shufflerofrocks 1y ago
    Then you should take a better look. Each local ISP has their own self-designated territory or "area". They don't let any other ISPs establish themselves in their areas, beating them up or cutting their wires if they try - you can talk to any ISP technician and they'll tell you about it. 90% of the fluctuations in network are from a cable cut, often by competing agencies. It's also one of the big reasons why AirFibre is becoming more prominent - can't cut cables if there are no cables. The above commentor uses "mafia" not in the literal sense but he's talking about the mafia-like system where each ISP has territories they fight over. Tbh, it's manageable in Bangalore, since the territories are already established and there's not much interference but much more horrible in other areas - we had to suffer with a shitty ISP in my hometown for years bc they kept cutting cables & bullying any other ISP that tried to come in.