RECYKAL TIMESIntelligence for the circular economyAluminium scrap is the only major base-metal scrap India still charges an import duty on, after copper, zinc and lead went to nil. Two industry bodies now want that 2.5% changed in opposite directions, and the decision lands at the February 2027 Budget. If you import, trade or remelt aluminium scrap, this fight sets your landed cost for the next year.
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Across India · ₹/kg · as of 27 Oct 2026
Multi-layered plastic, the foil-lined sachets and pouches that hold shampoo, ketchup, gutka and milk powder, is about 21% of India's plastic waste by the government's own composition data, yet it is the one stream the scrap market barely touches. A collector earns almost nothing for it, because the layers cannot be cleanly separated and the money recovered hardly covers the cost of picking, moving and sorting it. A fresh survey shows the squeeze: Indians say they would pay more for sustainable packaging, the most willing of any country, but at the shop the cheapest sachet still wins. What is changing is not the scrap value. It is who pays, and the answer, increasingly, is the brand, through EPR.
A DGFT notice dated 21 October 2026 lets certificate-free scrap from six safe regions enter India through 11 ports instead of 8, and be cleared at inland container depots. Official trade data show those six regions supplied about half of India's ₹1.17 lakh crore metal scrap import bill in 2025-26. The European Union, about a third of that flow, has proposed stopping metal scrap exports to India from 21 May 2027, and its final list is due by 21 November 2026.
National heavy melting scrap (HMS) fell 3.9% on our price page from 5 to 19 October 2026, from ₹38.60 to ₹37.10 a kg, and a public market report shows Mandi falling 3.8% in the week to 16 October. Diwali is on Sunday 8 November. We went back through public trade reports for the three earlier festivals. In each, prices were soft in the weeks before Diwali. What came after was different every time: a strong rebound in 2024, a weak one in 2025 and none in 2023. Four festivals are too few to call a rule, but they show what a yard can and cannot count on.
On 19 October 2026, the government said its office clean-up campaign had earned ₹491.28 crore from scrap since 2 October. The figure was ₹304.72 crore at the same point in 2025. Of that, ₹425.06 crore came from the Ministry of Railways, about 86% by our estimate. Railways also sells scrap all year. It reported more than ₹6,700 crore for 2025-26, which is more than the ₹5,102.91 crore the campaign has reported across five years and all ministries. The lots include cut rail, old sleepers, locomotives, coaches, wagons and a small amount of e-waste. This is what is being sold, how the sales work, and where to find open lots on our Auctions page.
On 15 October 2026, the country's largest PET recycler cleared its fourth food-grade recycled-PET line, part of a wave of capacity built to meet the rule that food and drink brands must use 40% recycled plastic in 2026-27. India now has about 17 FSSAI-approved food-grade rPET plants with roughly 3 lakh tonnes a year of capacity, heading towards an estimated 7.5 lakh tonnes by March 2027. But a food-grade plant cannot run on just any bottle. It needs clean, clear, well-sorted PET, and that is exactly the material the collection chain is worst at supplying. The bottleneck is no longer plants. It is feedstock.
In the week to 15 October 2026, brass scrap in Delhi and Jamnagar fell by ₹35 to ₹54 a kg and aluminium alloy ingot slipped about 2%, as downstream factories went quiet before Diwali on 8 November. The telling part is that it happened even where global metal moved the other way: LME copper rose about 1.2% over the fortnight while Indian brass scrap dropped, because the price you get in mid-October is set by local festive demand, not the exchange. Steel scrap, by contrast, barely moved. For dealers sitting on clean non-ferrous scrap, this is a holding decision, not a distress sale.
India's latest waste-tyre import decision recommends 288,219 tonnes across 23 applications. But 91,479 tonnes, nearly one-third of the total, is linked to further EPR verification or CPCB checks. The message for importers, recyclers and tyre brands is clear: capacity may open the gate, but only a consistent trail from import to production, sale and certificate can keep it open.
India's newest satellite bulletin recorded 778 paddy-residue fires across seven monitored jurisdictions from 15 September to 14 October 2026, about 35% more than in the same period of 2025. Haryana and Uttar Pradesh improved sharply, but Punjab moved above last year's pace, Rajasthan more than doubled and Madhya Pradesh more than tripled. After ₹4,266.47 crore of central releases and more than 3.54 lakh machines, the evidence points to a last-mile problem: equipment, farmers, storage and industrial buyers are still not connected consistently enough.
Between 1 April and 30 September 2026, India's battery rules did not receive a new Gazette amendment. The operating standard still changed sharply. A GST e-invoice cutover and two detailed CPCB guidelines connected battery-scrap collection, storage, transport, recycling, recovered-material sales and EPR certificates more tightly than before.
Between 1 April and 30 September 2026, India did not rewrite the E-Waste (Management) Rules. It tightened the way compliance is demonstrated. GST-linked invoice controls, certificate cut-offs, return extensions and portal discipline made one point clear for electronics brands: an EPR certificate is credible only when the commercial and material records behind it can be reconciled.
Fifty-eight companies cleared under the ₹1,500 crore critical mineral recycling scheme have pledged about 8.5 lakh tonnes a year of capacity, roughly three times what the government expected. India's registered e-waste recyclers already have more capacity than the country officially generates in e-waste. With a critical minerals stockpile policy due in about a month and lithium prices down by half since May 2026, the real contest now is over collection, and that puts aggregators and collectors in a stronger position.
India used 16.8 million tonnes of its main plastics in 2024-25 but made only 13.4 million tonnes, and the government's own trend projection has imports rising to about a third of demand by 2030-31. New plants could narrow that gap, but one is still ramping up and the other is years away. Meanwhile the recycled-content rule for rigid packaging climbs from 40% in 2026-27 to 60% by 2028-29, and imported plastic cannot meet it. For anyone who collects, sorts or reprocesses HDPE and PP, that is a long runway of demand.
The Ministry of Steel's draft National Steel Policy: Vision 2047 projects ferrous scrap use rising from 36 million tonnes in 2025-26 to 123 million tonnes by 2047-48. Domestic collection has to do almost all the work: it must grow from 28 million tonnes to 111 million tonnes, and the draft proposes a nationwide collection drive modelled on Swachh Bharat to get there. Scrap's share of steelmaking, though, is planned to stay at about 21%. Anyone can send suggestions to the ministry until 30 October 2026.
Dubai Customs' four-month ban on aluminium, copper and iron scrap exports reached its end date on 8 October 2026 and, under its own terms, renewed automatically, because no cancelling notice was issued. Official trade data show Gulf aluminium scrap shipments to India fell by a third in April to July 2026, while India paid about 42% more per kilo for the scrap it imported in July. Two decisions in Delhi, on the 2.5% import duty and on inspection certificates, are still pending.
Recorded ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is still a small fraction of what it was before the Iran war began on 28 February 2026. On 6 October 2026, only seven commodity vessels crossed, the fewest since 23 July, and attacks on tankers hit their highest weekly level of the war. In India the effects came in waves. Plastic raw material prices rose by half or more within weeks. The government waived import duty and then let the waiver lapse. Small plastic factories shut lines, and recycled plastic became more competitive on price. Recyclers say the gain is uneven, because brands are slow to buy and clean PET bottles are hard to find. This is how the story has run so far, and what it means for people who collect, sort and recycle.
A government-wide Special Campaign 6.0, with a special focus on e-waste disposal, is scheduled to run in offices from 2 to 31 October 2026. A report on 30 September 2026 added a warning about paperwork. A tax notice dated 27 August 2026 alleges that three home-appliance makers claimed tax credits of about $714,000 in total on recycling services that were not shown to have been delivered. The makers have said they will respond or cooperate, and none of the allegations has been tested. For everyone who handles e-waste, from kabadiwalas to recyclers, the lesson is to write the weight, the date and the name on every lot.
An objective, evidence-based benchmark on Indian plastic scrap pricing (₹/kg) across PET, HDPE, LDPE, PP, and PVC, alongside a state-wise ranking of India's primary recycling hubs and CPCB EPR drivers.
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