In Delhi's e-waste hub, informal workers lose business

New Delhi: In a dim room off a crowded alley in northeast Delhi, Shahjahan sits on the floor peeling wires with a knife. Her two children sort copper beside her, taking care to avoid tripping on scrap when they move across the room.

She earns a few hundred rupees a day by breaking down discarded electronics brought in by small scrap dealers.

But the supply of e-waste is thinning, and Shahjahan's income is dwindling as more scrap moves to licensed plants on the edge of the capital.

"If the work goes, what will we do?" said Shahjahan, 32, who only gave her first name.

India is cracking down on informal recycling in a bid to recover a greater proportion of minerals like copper, a key material in solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles.

For people in Delhi's Seelampur district, the transition to formal recycling means the loss of work and income that have sustained the neighbourhood for decades.

More than half of Delhi's 5,000 informal e-waste recycling sites are in Seelampur, providing work for tens of thousands of people, according to a 2019 report by Delhi-based environmental group Toxic Links.

Hunt for minerals

India is the world's third-largest generator of electronic waste after China and the United States, according to the UN's Global E-Waste Monitor 2024, with government data showing it reached 1.75 million tonnes last year.

Now the government wants to extract critical minerals like copper, lithium and rare earth elements from this scrap, part of its $4 billion National Critical Minerals Mission, which was launched in January and also seeks to secure supplies from overseas and domestic mines.

The government is also providing financial support to set up and run recycling plants, seeking to add 270,000 tonnes of capacity and produce about 40,000 tonnes of critical minerals a year, while targeting nearly 70,000 jobs.

India recycled more than 40 per cent of its e-waste last year, official data shows, a rate close to those in Europe and the United States.

But sustainability experts warn that much of the early work still happens in homes and informal workshops like those in Seelampur, where workers peel, break and sort waste without protective gear before it moves to authorised plants.

Swati Singh Sambyal, a circular economy expert with GRID-Arendal, an environmental research centre based in Norway, said the transition needs to recognise this reality.

"Informal workers remain the first and most important tier of India's e-waste chain," she said. "Formalisation must protect their rights and create pathways to better work, otherwise the shift will deepen marginalisation."

Loss of income

For years, Seelampur relied on a simple supply chain.

Workers bought discarded wires and electronics from local scrap dealers, took them home and extracted chips, copper and aluminium, then sold the metal to neighbourhood buyers who supplied factories.

That chain is now weakening as formal recyclers expand and local authorities restrict home-based dismantling by disconnecting electricity and fining small units.

Large traders and middlemen supplying dismantled materials to recycling factories have moved their operations to industrial zones.

The impact of this dangerous work is visible in the hands of Mohammad Saleem. His palms are darkened and cut from eight years of peeling wires.

"My earning has reduced to 300 rupees a day from 700 rupees a couple of years ago," he said outside his cramped two-storey home.

"The work is moving out of these alleys quickly."

Many people, and especially women, cannot follow the work to distant factories, workers said.

For 28-year-old Mohammed Shadab, the shift feels like losing ground he fought to gain. He left his job three years ago in a factory where he earned a monthly 10,000 rupees to build a home business that brought in up to 25,000 rupees.

"The work is moving away to factories," he said. "I don't have the money or information to set up a licensed plant. It feels like I'm being pushed back into becoming a worker."

Formal recyclers said they continue to depend on informal workers, but lack the capacity or infrastructure to absorb everyone.

Rajesh Gupta of Recyclekaro, a Mumbai-based company, said companies try to work with informal workers through authorised buyers and by providing basic training, but need further investment to expand and create more jobs.

Growth in the sector will require predictable supply and prices, said Yashraj Bhardwaj of Plannex, a new e-waste recycling company.

India's rules require producers to recycle e-waste at government-registered facilities at a minimum price of 22 rupees per kilogram, meant to support compliant facilities and reduce dependence on unsafe workshops.

"A steady 22 rupees a kilo gives us confidence to grow," Bhardwaj said.

But global electronics brands Samsung, LG, Daikin, Carrier and other producers have sued the Indian government over the regulations. They argue that fixed-price mechanisms distort the market.

The outcome of the case will likely shape how India builds its recycling system and whether small collectors and informal workers remain a part of it.