India sets construction waste recycling targets with new rules

India’s environment ministry has announced new rules to improve waste management in the construction and demolition industry. The 2025 rules, set to take effect starting April 1, 2026, will place greater responsibility on waste producers and introduce mandatory recycling targets, reports contributor Akshay Deshmane for Mongabay India.

As India rapidly builds infrastructure, the waste from the country’s construction and demolition industry is expected to reach 165 million metric tons annually by 2030, according to India’s Central Pollution Control Board. To curb that waste, the government has introduced a suite of rules to encourage developers to reuse and recycle construction waste.

The new rules require that producers — people responsible for construction or reconstruction projects with a built-up area of 20,000 square meters (about 215,000 square feet) or more — must prepare a waste management plan that assesses the amount of waste expected from all aspects of their project and submit it to the local authority for approval.

The rules also define extended producer responsibilities (EPR), requiring producers to collect and segregate waste, store it safely, and ensure recycling or proper handover to authorized agencies or recyclers. Producers must reach EPR recycling targets of 25% in 2025-26 and 100% by 2028-29.

Additionally, the new rules require that processed construction and demolition debris must be reused in certain construction activities; 5% in the next two years and 25% by 2030-31.

“The mandated minimum targets for using recycled C&D [construction and demolition] waste in construction and infrastructure projects are especially promising. They can help create a reliable market, which may drive down costs over time and incentivize innovation in material recycling and reuse,” Sree Kumar Kumaraswamy, program director of Clean Air Action at WRI India, told Mongabay India.

According to the new rules, producers must also ensure their waste doesn’t generate air pollution, littering, and public nuisance, Deshmane reports. A centralized online portal is expected to monitor the implementation of the new rules.

Stalin D., director at Mumbai-based NGO Vanashakti, told Mongabay India the rules could “certainly help in curbing the menace of illegal dumping in public and natural spaces. Ecologically important areas, especially wetlands, have borne the brunt of such dumping.”

Additionally, the new rules allow construction and demolition waste producers to meet their targets by purchasing EPR certificates from registered recyclers, Deshmane reports.

“The requirement to buy EPR certificates in advance is a good step — it ensures that the cost of proper disposal is paid upfront,” Stalin said.

Bharati Chaturvedi of the Chintan Foundation pointed out the rules are still unclear about specifying who the EPR responsibilities fall on. “In e-waste and plastics, brand owners are clearly accountable. But in this case, who is responsible — the house owner, the contractor, or a government body like PWD [Public Works Department]? We still don’t have a clear definition, and that’s a concern.”

Read the full story by Akshay Deshmane here.

Banner image of under-construction residential buildings in Kolkata. Image by Biswarup Ganguly via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

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