Vedanta-promoted Hindustan Zinc bets on industrial e-waste recycling

In September, Hindustan Zinc announced it would consider possible options for a separation of its business units into zinc, lead and silver, and recycling

Vedanta-promoted Hindustan Zinc (HZL) plans to explore opportunities in the recycling space, including extraction of metals from industrial residue and electronic waste, company executives said.

As part of the proposed business demerger, the company had earlier said that recycling would be a potential third business entity.

“Going forward, the world’s most valuable companies will be those which are in the recycling business," Arun Misra, chief executive officer of HZL, said.

He elaborates on the third proposed separate business unit of recycling.

In September, Hindustan Zinc announced it will consider possible options for a separation of its business units into – zinc, lead & silver and recycling.

“We are looking if there is a scope for us to recover gold, silver, and copper from e-waste,” said Misra, adding the company will explore tie-ups with foreign companies on the technology side.  

In June, clean-tech company EnviroGold Global announced a memorandum of understanding with Hindustan Zinc and Runaya Green Tech to evaluate the EnviroGold Global metal recovery process on the waste streams from various Hindustan Zinc operations.

In addition to e-waste, Hindustan Zinc is also expected to explore recycling opportunities on the industrial side.

"We can clean up smelter residue, furnace residue, boiler residue, and even utility scrap, to re-process and deliver metals," said Misra.

Commenting on at what stage these plans were, Misra said, "Laboratory work is ongoing for the extraction of such metals. We have had successful experiments with the extraction of metals from smelter residue." The company did not share an investment figure or other capacity addition details.

As part of the proposed plan for the separation of business units, Hindustan Zinc has appointed an independent agency to submit a report on the proposal.
 

The report is expected in the next four to six weeks and is likely to offer more clarity.

Incidentally, Anil Agarwal, promoter for Vedanta, started his entrepreneurial journey as a metal scrap dealer in the mid-1970s in India.
 

In India, among others exploring recycling opportunities is the Aditya Birla Group.

In August, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of Hindalco Industries, announced the company is making an investment of Rs 2,000 crore to establish the first-of-its-kind copper and e-waste recycling facility in India.
 

Globally, mining giants such as Glencore already run recycling capacities, which the company stated in its annual report for 2022 has evolved from a side activity to an important function for Glencore.