India is confronting the limits of a growth model that has shaped its economy for decades. For years, economic expansion has followed a linear “take, make, dispose” approach — one that assumes resources will always be there and waste will somehow take care of itself. While this model delivered short-term gains, the cost has been mounting: landfills spilling over, ecosystems under strain, and greenhouse gas emissions climbing year after year.
This is why the shift to a circular economy is no longer a niche environmental idea. In this model, materials remain in use for as long as possible, waste is kept to a minimum, and products are designed to last. It is both an economic necessity and a national opportunity. With the right approach, it could add more than $2 trillion to the economy and create close to 10 million jobs by 2050, while also helping India meet its net-zero targets. Realising that potential means rethinking how we design, use, and recover the things we make — a change that is already beginning to take root.
Beyond recycling: Redesigning for longevity
Circularity in India is evolving beyond the familiar terrain of recycling to embrace systemic transformation, with businesses rethinking the very DNA of products and supply chains. They are designing goods for longer lifespans, modular repair, and easier disassembly. This reduces material intensity and opens the door to new service-based business models. Closed-loop supply chains are recovering materials from end-of-life products and feeding them back into production, cutting dependence on virgin resources.
The scale of the challenge is huge. India produces about 62 million tonnes of municipal solid waste each year, yet only around 30% is processed. The rest is dumped in landfills or left in open sites. The situation is equally serious in electronics, with the country generating about 1.6 million tonnes of e-waste annually. Encouragingly, some businesses are already using blockchain and IoT tracking to follow materials through their entire life cycle, helping them identify waste points and close the loop.
These changes don’t just help the planet. They also cut costs, protect against resource shortages, and meet the growing demand from consumers for sustainable products. For these innovations to reach scale, supportive policies are just as important as industry action.
Policy momentum and market signals
Government action is giving this movement extra momentum, with Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) encouraging people to consume more responsibly and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules making manufacturers take charge of what happens to their products after use. Under the latest EPR targets, producers of plastic packaging must recycle all rigid plastics by 2025 — a goal that is already driving innovation in packaging design and materials.
Building on these national efforts, states such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have introduced their own circular economy plans, and the central government is running pilot projects in sectors like textiles, construction, and electronics to test scalable models. These initiatives are also boosting the domestic e-recycling sector, which is projected to grow at a CAGR of 13.52% in the coming years.
For forward-looking companies, these are more than regulations. They are clear signals of where the market is heading and where the early opportunities lie. Yet even with strong policy support, true circularity will depend on collaboration across sectors.
Collaboration for scale
No single company or city can make circularity happen on its own; it takes partnerships between industries, local governments, universities, and communities. Such collaboration involves shared facilities for collecting and sorting waste, joint investments in recovery plants, and coordinated consumer engagement to shift purchasing habits towards durability and reuse.
The promise of India’s circular economy lies in its ability to turn environmental challenges into engines of growth. Achieving it will take investment, innovation, and clear ways to measure progress. If policy, business, and public action can be brought together, circularity could become a pillar of India’s future, turning waste into wealth and scarcity into resilience. This goes beyond being green. It’s a smart economic move. In the decades ahead, the nations and companies that master it will set the pace. India has the scale, the energy, and the momentum to lead, but only if it chooses to act boldly, and act now.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.