Attero bets big on rare earth recycling with ₹2k-cr capex

Amid India’s push for self-reliance in rare earths and critical minerals, e-waste recycler Attero plans to spend ₹2,000 crore over the next three years to expand its battery recycling and critical minerals refining capacity, said co-founder and CEO Nitin Gupta.

- Rituraj Baruah

The firm aims to scale up its rare earth recovery and recycling capacity in India to 100 tonne per day, from the current 1 tonne. "Our (lithium ion) battery recycling capacity will increase to almost 300,000 tonnes per annum from current 17,000 tonnes, almost 15 times the expansion,” he said.

Attero recovers rare earth elements from used permanent magnets and exports its recycled rare earth products. It recovers minerals such as neodymium and seramium that find end use in the permanent magnets in automotive and defence sectors.

As India explores ways to become self-reliant in critical minerals used in batteries, renewable energy components, defence and IT equipment, recycling of e-waste is increasingly seen as a major way to source these materials.

India generates more than 3.8 million tonnes of e-waste annually. While a significant portion moves via informal routes, share of formal processing is steadily increasing with enforcement of extended producer responsibility (EPR) and stricter compliance rules.