Recycling firm may be a $20-billion opportunity: Avendus Capital

By siliconindia  |  Monday, 05 June 2023, 08:58:46 AM IST

Recycling firm may be a $20-billion opportunity: Avendus Capital
Recycling of plastics, gadgets and batteries can constitute a $20-billion chance for India by 2030, investment banking company Avendus Capital said in a report.
The world is now under more pressure to become sustainable than ever before, Avendus said in the report, titled ‘Circular Economy: Recycling Waste to Wealth’. So that the rate of climate change can be favourably impacted, it was stated that regulations that assure natural resource conservation, waste reduction, and reduced fossil fuel consumption must be implemented immediately.
“We believe that the recycling sector is at an inflection point owing to the rising focus on sustainability and the regulatory push,” said Koushik Bhattacharyya, managing director and head, industrials investment banking, at Avendus Capital.
Businesses are realising that being sustainable is the right thing to do and it also improves their perceived value among all stakeholders, with customers increasingly choosing brands based on their sustainability credentials and investors doubling down on their ESG (environmental, social, and corporate) mandates, Bhattacharyya said.
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“The sector will soon see a shift towards being organised and new companies will join the fray to solve bottlenecks at various legs of the value chain to enable India’s circular ecosystem,” he added.
However, despite the significant increase in awareness, the adoption of circular economy practices has been a key challenge. India is still increasingly relying on materials from virgin sources. It is estimated that in 2023, only 7% of all material inputs put back into the global economy are from secondary materials that are recycled into use. It was estimated that the percentage of materials recycled back into the economy in 2018 was 9%, and hence it is clear that circularity has seen a gradual decline globally over the last five years, the report said.
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The recycling sector is fuelled by various tailwinds such as the new waste management rules which are largely based on the principle of “polluter pays” and has set various obligations on brand owners including for collection of waste and also for use of recycled content for the manufacture of fresh materials.
Ashish Ahuja, vice-president, industrials investment banking, at Avendus Capital, said: “India’s plastic waste recycling industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24% and reach $10.2 billion by FY30.
This will be driven by the rising use of recyclable plastics, exponential demand in ecommerce and quick-commerce packaging and use in light-weighting of products.”
With the introduction of e-waste management rules and advanced recycling methods improving the recoverability of precious elements, e-waste recycling is most likely to grow at a 23% CAGR to touch $7.5 billion in the same period, Ahuja said.

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