The traditional "kabadiwala" network, long the backbone of India’s recycling, is entering a high-tech era, with certain players infusing AI and the latest technology into the recycling sector.
Back in 2025, Attero, a leading urban miner and electronic waste recycler, launched MetalMandi—a B2B digital platform designed to transform the fragmented scrap trade into a transparent, formalised powerhouse.
Now, with over 2 lakh app downloads and a presence across 28 states, the MetalMandi enables local scrap dealers and small aggregators to access live, AI-driven market prices for metals like copper, aluminium, and gold. To put it simply, imagine a Zepto or Urban Company-like stack but for recycling... In fact, the platform looks to hit ₹10,000 crore in revenue over the next five years.
This shift is crucial for a country where 99 per cent of recycling previously occurred in hazardous, informal mom-and-pop shops.
"India is a net importer of every single critical metal today," explained Attero CEO Nitin Gupta. By formalising the collection of electronic and battery waste, Attero aims to reduce India’s dependence on imports, particularly from China. This is not just about waste, Gupta told THE WEEK, it is about "urban mining" for the critical minerals, such as lithium and cobalt, required for India’s electric vehicle (EV) revolution and national defence.
The import dependence is increasingly viewed as a strategic vulnerability for the nation’s defence, energy, and commercial sectors, particularly as geopolitical tensions lead to resource nationalism. Major industrial players are already responding to this shift, with conglomerates like Adani, Hindalco, and Tata Steel investing billions in smelting infrastructure and "green steel" production.
The Centre’s ₹32,000-crore National Critical Minerals Mission aims to do more, with schemes to develop India’s domestic capacity to 6,000 tonnes of rare earth magnets per year. The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework supports this, which mandates that manufacturers collect and scientifically recycle end-of-life products.
Earlier, the informal sector handled 99 per cent of India’s waste using hazardous methods like cyanide leaching and open coal burning, but policy interventions have successfully shifted 40 per cent of this volume into the formal sector over the last four years, explained Gupta.
This is also why platforms such as MetalMandi are scaling rapidly, he reasoned. It currently facilitates the procurement of approximately 15,000 metric tonnes of scrap monthly, and Gupta targets it to reach 75,000 tonnes as it expands into the top 100 Indian cities. Attero is already expanding its physical infrastructure. New facilities are opening in Pune, Bangalore, and Jaipur, which will nearly double the company’s e-waste processing capacity to 244,000 tonnes per annum, he said.
Gupta also doubled down on MetalMandi’s focus on the "little guy". By providing a single-click KYC process and transparent pricing, it removes middlemen who previously pocketed the majority of profits, he explained.
The app even plans to introduce hedging tools to protect small collectors from volatile metal prices. This is particularly timely as India prepares for a massive surge in lithium battery waste, and the country is in need of more such initiatives for a cleaner, self-reliant future.
India currently generates around 4 million tonnes of e-waste annually, a figure growing at 15 per cent each year. And with EV makers looking to establish more battery cell manufacturing capacity, the industry anticipates a surge in both production waste and end-of-life lithium battery waste, expected to reach 100,000 tonnes per annum.