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Relaxed quality norms allowed overseas coil imports to spike while domestic stainless flat production dropped 9%.
Relaxed quality control orders and cheap overseas coil reduce domestic mill output, reshaping raw material demand across Indian ports.
Trade data published on 7 November 2026 shows India's imports of finished stainless flat products rose 33% to 8.69 lakh tonnes in January to August 2026. In the same months, India's own mills cut finished flat output by 9%. Nobody has joined those two numbers to the thing that follows from them, which is that the furnaces buying your stainless scrap have a smaller order book than they did a year ago.
India's copper demand hit a record 2,100 thousand tonnes in 2025-26, and its copper scrap imports jumped about 51% to ₹30,353 crore to help feed it. But the three suppliers that send India the most copper scrap, the Gulf, the United States and the European Union, have each taken steps in 2026 to hold that scrap inside their own borders. For copper and brass recyclers, the message is the same from three directions: the imported tonne is getting harder to count on.
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.
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 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.
India consumed 84.9 million tonnes of finished steel in April to September 2026, up 7.5% from a year earlier, according to Steel Ministry data released on 6 October 2026. Crude steel output rose just 2.9% to 85.1 million tonnes, and imports climbed 23.8%. Demand running ahead of production is good news for scrap sellers, but rising imports set a ceiling on prices. Here is what the half-year numbers say.
As Europe moves to restrict scrap exports and India tightens its own import checks, the debate is all about imports. But India's two biggest sources of home-grown scrap, the Alang shipbreaking yards and the new vehicle scrapping centres, are running far below what they were built for. A Recykal Times analysis of official figures shows that the unused capacity at home is several times larger than the European supply now at risk.
Copper finished September almost exactly where it began, after a swing of more than $750 a tonne along the way. Zinc and copper stocks in London warehouses rose sharply, lead stocks fell, and India imported nearly 30% more finished steel in the first five months of the financial year. Here is the month in numbers, and what they say about October.
India's large steel mills boosted their production by 1.9% in July, making 14.4 million tonnes of crude steel. This report breaks down what the numbers mean for your wallet and why this could be the best time to sell your stock.
Tighter inspection at entry is changing which origins and grades clear efficiently, with knock-on effects on domestic premiums.