Nithin Gadkari, the Union Minister of Road, Transport & Highways, has emphasised the need to encourage material recycling in order to reduce the cost of material finished products and increase country’s exports.
The recycling industry is one of the important industries in the country, especially in the automobile sector.
“We have a shortage of copper, aluminum and steel in the metal section and it is time to encourage recycling of materials. That is the reason that the government is propagating the policy of scrapping,” the minister said.
Inaugurating the 10 th edition of the International India Material Recycling Conference organised by Material Recycling Association of India (MRAI) in Kochi, the minister urged automobile manufacturers and big companies to collaborate and start scrapping units in different parts of the country. The government has taken the decision to scrap nine lakh government vehicles and open scrapping units in every district.
The size of the automobile industry is ₹7.5-lakh crore. “Our target is to make the industry worth ₹15-lakh crore by which we will create five crore new jobs in the country”, the minister said.
He pointed out that the role of scrapping industry in circular economy is very important, especially in creating more jobs and more wealth for the country.
Ruchika Chaudhary Govil, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Steel, stressed the need to develop a systematic roadmap for achieving India’s commitment of carbon neutrality by 2070.
“Consumers have immense recyclable material lying in their homes like e-waste, clothes, etc. and we need to tackle it seriously by working in sync with the kabadiwalas, local municipal corporations and recycling parks to derive secondary resources for the future,” said the Secretary.
The global metal recycling market size reached $219.8 bllion in 2021 and it is slated to reach $302.4 billion by 2027, with a CAGR of 5.46 per cent during 2021-2027.