India has announced regulations for its newest waste stream — construction and demolition (C&D) waste. The Environment (Construction & Demolition) Waste Management Rules, 2025 will be applicable from April 1, 2026 and they indicate a crucial shift in the country.
The rules make bulk generators or ‘producers’ — those involved in construction projects with built up area larger than or equal to 20,000 square metres — responsible for mandatory recycling and reuse of waste. This is being pushed under an ‘extended producer responsibility’ (EPR) and waste utilisation framework.
The move ensures bulk generators, who generally are involved in multiple projects, commit to a recycling and reuse target. All producers have to prepare a waste management plan, including quantum of waste that will be generated, register their project along with this information on an online portal and receive an EPR certificate on payment of a fee set by the Central Polllution Control Board (CPCB).
The producers will have to meet the recycling targets based on the quantum of waste declared by purchasing EPR credits from the recyclers on the portal. The process makes producers more accountable by letting them directly manage the recycling and reuse of products to meet their targets through the portal.
The portal will calculate the volume of waste eligible for recycling by a registered recycler based on an equation provided. In-situ processing has higher weightage than off-site processing using a centralised facility in the city. This means the producers will get higher credits for in-situ recycling.
Traditionally, there is reuse of certain waste or material recovered, especially during demolition of structures such as doors, windows and metal frames. The framework does not count all reuse in in-situ recycling. Recyclables will include concrete, bricks, cement plaster, stone, rubble and tiles. The reuse target will not count iron, wood, plastic, metal and glass.
The framework brings traceability through the lifecycle of waste, including its generation, processing into products and reuse. This is not supported by the existing rules.
Also, these rules have been adopted by cities differently, while mainly urban local bodies are sole drivers of urban C&D waste management. This issue has been aadressed in the new rules, introducing the much-needed accountability
The new rules confer immense power to the state government, particularly the state pollution control boards (SPCB) and urban development and municipal administration departments. CPCB will also play a greater role in this setting, compared to the previous rules.
CPCB is responsible for setup, operation and maintainence of the online portal. It will also integrate all stakeholders with the portal within six months of notification of these rules. The central body has to develop standard operating procedures (SoP) for the EPR framework, waste utilisation, environmental compliance, and develop metrics such as conversion factors for recycled products.
SPCBs are going to be the key agency that operate and monitor the online portal similar to other waste fractions. They are to conduct research activities like waste inventorisation (including legacy waste) and gap assessment for infrastructure, along with ULBs. They also have a clearer and stronger role beyond municipal boundary, which includes utilisation of waste in road construction.
The urban development and municipal administration department of the state has to develop waste management policy and schedule of rates. The department will estimate the quantum of waste to be processed and generated daily. This is a welcome move, considering cities do not know how much waste they generate and have established recycling facilities based on ad-hoc (under)estimations led by recyclers so far.
The role of ULBs has not changed much. They have to approve waste management and utilisation plans, enforce EPR in the city, manage legacy and unclaimed waste as well as plan and provide C&D waste infrastructure like collection point, intermediate waste storage facility and recycling plant.
The rules bring mandatory recycling and reuse targets under the EPR framework. But the question is: How will the recycled materials get absorbed when the codes do not support it to the extent needed?
The rules provide graded recycling targets for reconstruction and demolition projects according to the first schedule. Starting from 25 per cent in 2025-26 and increasing by 25 per cent every year, the rules will bind producers for 100 per cent recycling eventually by 2028-29 and beyond.
The second schedule of the rules provides reutilisation to the tune of 5 per cent in 2026-27, increasing gradually by 5 per cent every year. By 2030-31, the rules aim to replace atleast 25 per cent of the virgin materials in construction and re-construction.
According to Indian Standard 383, only recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) can replace natural aggregates by 20 per cent for M25 grade concrete (standard in construction) and by 25 per cent for non-structural elements. This is concerning when the projects above 20,000 sqm are largely using monolithic concrete technology. Further monolithic construction uses M30 and M40 grade concrete for structural elements, which is not supported with use of RCA as per the Indian Standard. This will cause underutilisation of recycled materials.
Many other places such as Australia, Portugal, Hong Kong and Germany allow higher maximum substitution limits — 30 to 100 per cent — for RCAs. India should also aim at higher substitutions to fully enable reuse of C&D waste.
A few experiments in the country demonstrated that recycled aggregates have higher potential to replace natural aggregates. For instance, an experiment by the National Council for Cement & Building Materials concluded that RCAs can replace natural aggregates by upto 40 per cent.
Another project by the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra used 50 per cent of fine RCA in an affordable housing project made by precast technology. These examples show that IS 383 and other standards should be revisited to fully realise the potential to reuse C&D waste.
Cities like Delhi and Chandigarh now have a fully established ecosystem for C&D waste management that includes collection, transportation, processing and even a mandate for reuse. Still, there is hesitation in these cities around the use of recycled products. This is largely due to the lack of clarity on their quality.
Therefore, testing, definition of the quality and standardisation of these products are now a much-needed aspect. This is now a crucial step or else there is going to be much recycling and little reuse.