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Electronics brands face escalating recycling quotas while legal challenges against mandatory certificate price floors remain unresolved in court.
New CBIC notifications extend the tax model previously used for metal scrap to plastic waste.
Notification G.S.R. 237(E) establishes mandatory recycled plastic content targets for packaging while restricting imported credit claims.
On 1 November 2026, three CBIC notifications changed how plastic waste and scrap is taxed. Buy from an unregistered supplier and you now pay the GST yourself, in cash, at 18%. Buy from a registered one and you deduct 2% at source instead. From 1 January 2027 every purchase from an unregistered supplier also needs an e-invoiced self-invoice. The paperwork, not the rate, is what will reshape who sells plastic scrap in India.
For years, the weak spot in e-waste EPR was the certificate nobody could trace. A CPCB direction dated 7 July 2026 closes that gap. On the E-Waste EPR Portal, a recycling certificate now stands only if a GST e-invoice backs the sale of the recovered metal. If it does not, CPCB calls it a false certificate. For a producer who buys certificates to meet an EPR target, this is the best protection handed to you in a long time.
India's 2026 plastic rules now force brands to put 40% recycled content in rigid packaging this financial year, rising to 60% by 2028-29. That is a standing order to buy your recycled plastic. But the system meant to verify those claims, registered auditors and a CPCB guideline that was due around September 2026, has not fully arrived, which makes auditable, standard-grade recycled output the thing worth paying for.
India has one national EPR system for waste batteries, but it does not have one functioning certificate market. A 29 October 2026 snapshot of CPCB’s public dashboard shows a deep pool of lead credits and a remarkably small pool of lithium credits. For battery brands, the compliance question is no longer simply whether certificates exist, but whether the correct metal-specific certificate exists when it is needed.
On 16 October 2026, GSTN opened the e-Invoicing system to recipient-generated self-invoices under the Reverse Charge Mechanism (RCM) for taxpayers with an Aggregate Annual Turnover (AATO) of ₹5 crore and above. Two new supply type codes now sit in the e-Invoice schema: RCMDOM for domestic purchases from unregistered sellers, and RCMIMP for import of services from suppliers outside India. Knowing which code fits which purchase bill decides how your accounts team generates the Invoice Reference Number (IRN).
CPCB's 2026 battery recycling guidelines do two things that change who gets to stay in the trade. They put manual acid-battery breaking on a hard clock, and they sort lithium recyclers into licensed tiers around "black mass", the halfway product that is quietly becoming the industry's new unit of value.
The government fixed a floor price for e-waste recycling certificates, 30% of the environmental compensation for dodging the rule, which works out to ₹22 a kg for consumer electronics and ₹10 to ₹41 across other categories. That floor is what lets a registered recycler pay a real rate for your old TV or laptop instead of a race-to-the-bottom price. On 22 October 2026 the Environment Minister called for "coordination between producers and recyclers." In e-waste, that coordination is a court fight: Samsung, LG, Havells, Daikin and Voltas have asked the Delhi High Court to strike the floor down and let the market set the price. For the collector and the recycler, the whole economics of doing it the legal way rests on how that case ends.
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.
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.
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.
The 57th GST Council meeting, held in New Delhi on 8 October 2026 under the chairpersonship of Union Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, will change how India’s scrap, recycling and circular-economy businesses buy, move and account for material. If the 56th meeting was about rates, the 57th is about process: registration, returns, refunds, adjudication, e-way bills and the criminal side of GST.
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.
Since 10 October 2024, two rules decide how GST is handled on almost every metal scrap deal in India. If the seller is unregistered, the registered buyer pays the GST under reverse charge. If the seller is registered, the buyer deducts 2% TDS on larger deals. Here is how each works, with examples, and what has changed since.
September changed the ground rules for India's scrap and recycling trade, from Brussels and Beijing to New Delhi and Punjab. Europe drew a line on metal scrap, India tightened its own import checks, oil above $100 made new plastic dearer, and a fixed biogas price gave straw a ten-year market. Here are the ten changes that matter most, ranked, with what each means and who it affects.
GST officers can cancel a dealer's registration from a retrospective effect, and the dealer's customers can then be asked to give back the input tax credit they claimed. Here is what the law allows, what courts have ruled, and the records that protect a genuine business.
This week, Eicher-maker VECV signed a deal to route old trucks into registered scrapping centres. Behind it are a government scheme to replace more than 2 lakh old trucks and buses, and an auto industry that missed its legal scrapping target by 70%. For the first time, subsidy money and compliance demand are pointing at the same scrapyard gate.