Gravita India is a multinational recycler that turns scrap - mostly used lead-acid batteries - back into pure metal and alloys, operating on the simple logic that recycling lead takes a third of the energy of mining it and the metal never degrades, no matter how many times it is re-melted. Founded in 1992 in Jaipur by a first-generation entrepreneur who spotted a global gap in recovering lead for reuse, the company has spent three decades expanding from a single-metal recycler into a multi-metal, multi-continent platform that now handles lead, aluminium, plastic, rubber, copper and lithium, with 14 plants across 70-plus countries. The recurring pattern is deliberate and visible: start small, build a plant close to where the scrap is, lock in margins by hedging metal prices the same day the scrap is bought, and then use the cash from that plant to fund the next diversification - lead paid for aluminium, aluminium is paying for copper, and copper will pay for lithium.
Business segments
Five engines at different stages - a lead-recycling cash cow, two consumer-linked material platforms scaling fast, a copper acquisition that opens a new industrial front, and a green-energy bet under construction - each built with the cash flows of the one before.
1. Lead recycling: the cash engine that funds everything else
Gravita is India's only International Lead Association-accredited recycler, selling nearly 49,000 tonnes of lead and custom alloys in FY26 to battery giants like Exide and Amara Raja, with a hedging discipline that locks margins before metal prices can move.
- Hedges metal equivalent of scrap purchases the same day - the company sells the metal equivalent of the scrap it buys via forward contracts on the London Metal Exchange on the same day, a practice in place since June 2016, and has hedged core inventory since June 2019, so commodity price swings do not eat into its processing margin.
- Tolling for the biggest battery makers - it processes scrap for OEMs like Exide and Amara Raja on a fee basis, which gives it a dominant share of India's organised lead-recycling volumes and predictable demand that is not tied to its own trading book.
- Pure enough to trade on the exchange - its refined lead is an approved deliverable brand against MCX futures contracts, a status that applies to output from its Mundra, Chittoor and Phagi plants and gives it structural advantages in domestic pricing and inventory management.
- Capacity built in chunks, close to ports - the Mundra plant alone was expanded to 145,100 tonnes per annum in early 2026, sited next to a port so raw material can arrive cheaply and finished metal can reach export markets without a long inland haul.
- The metal that never wears out - lead-acid batteries already have a 99% recycling rate globally, and recycled lead uses only 35-40% of the energy required for primary production, so the industry's feedstock is effectively guaranteed and its cost advantage over mining is permanent.
2. Aluminium recycling: the fast-growing second engine
A business built on ADC12 alloy for auto and aerospace customers, held back until now by the inability to hedge - a constraint that is about to lift as the alloy gets listed on India's commodity exchange.
- Waiting for the hedging tool - aluminium volumes actually fell in FY26 and FY24 because the company deliberately limited sales rather than expose itself to metal-price moves during long transit times; the expected launch of ADC12 as a derivative on MCX is the unlock that will let it scale.
- Four African plants feeding two continents - recycling facilities in Senegal, Mozambique, Tanzania and Togo process domestic aluminium scrap and supply the automobile and die-casting industries in Europe and Asia, with the Ghana plant alone adding 4,000 tonnes of annual capacity in early 2025.
- A market that imports almost everything - India consumes 1.1 million tonnes of secondary aluminium annually, nearly 30% of its total, yet roughly 90% of that secondary metal is imported, so a domestic recycler with scale is filling a gap that already exists.
3. Plastic recycling: the circular loop inside the battery business
It takes the plastic casings from the same used batteries that feed its lead furnaces, turns them into recycled polypropylene granules and food-grade PET flakes, and sells them into packaging markets where regulation is making recycled content mandatory.
- Fed by its own lead plants - a large portion of the plastic scrap comes from battery casings that arrive at its lead-recycling facilities, so the raw material is already on site and the collection cost is shared with the lead business.
- Chasing the highest-value packaging grade - the company is deliberately targeting primary plastic packaging, the material that touches food and drink, because it commands a better price than secondary or tertiary packaging, though winning customers takes years of product testing and qualification.
- Regulation is the demand driver - policy changes in the US and Europe now require recycled food-grade plastic for bottle-to-bottle applications, creating a structural pull that did not exist a decade ago.
- Margins that have found a floor - the plastic segment earned roughly INR 16,000 per tonne in FY26, and management sees INR 15,000-17,000 per tonne as a sustainable range, suggesting the business has reached a steady-state profitability level.
4. Copper recycling: the acquired entry into a new industrial metal
In FY26, Gravita bought a 78-year-old copper and copper-alloy manufacturer for INR 562 crores in cash, instantly gaining a 31,200-tonne plant, a customer base in electrical and defence, and a 40% export revenue stream - then announced a greenfield plant to double down.
- Bought, not built from scratch - the acquisition of Rashtriya Metal Industries gave it an integrated facility in Gujarat making copper strips, coils, sheets, brass cups and foils, with roughly 40% of revenue coming from exports to the UAE, USA, Thailand and other markets.
- Customers in hard-to-enter industries - RMIL already supplies electrical and defence segments, which have long qualification cycles and high switching costs, so Gravita bought relationships it could not easily replicate on its own.
- A second plant already in motion - within the same year, it announced a greenfield copper recycling plant in Mandvi, Gujarat, with 29,400 tonnes of capacity and a roughly Rs. 160 crore budget, funded from internal cash and expected to start production within 12 months.
5. Lithium-ion battery recycling: the pilot for the next decade
A 6,000-tonne pilot plant commissioned in January 2026 at Mundra, built for roughly Rs. 14 crores, marks the company's first step into recovering metals from the batteries that will dominate the energy transition.
- Small bet, big optionality - the facility uses advanced recycling technology to safely process lithium-ion cells, giving Gravita a working plant where it can learn the chemistry and economics before committing larger capital.
- Sited inside the lead complex - locating the pilot at the existing Mundra site means it can share infrastructure, utilities and management bandwidth with the lead operations that already run there.
Turnkey solutions: the in-house engineering arm that builds its plants
Gravita designs and commissions its own recycling plants - and has built more than 70 of them for external clients across the Middle East, Europe and South America - which is why it can put up a greenfield facility in 12 to 18 months and a brownfield expansion in six to nine.
- Sells plants to other recyclers - the division offers end-to-end project delivery from design through installation and handover, plus PLC-based automation and annual maintenance contracts, with past clients in Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Poland and Chile.
- Speed is the competitive advantage - because the engineering team sits in-house, greenfield projects in India take only 1 to 1.5 years and brownfield expansions take 6-9 months, far faster than if the company had to tender and manage outside contractors.
- Feeds its own R&D loop - the division supports internal technology development, so lessons from building plants for paying customers flow back into Gravita's own process quality and construction cycles.
Group structure and partners
A network of roughly two dozen subsidiaries spreads across India, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, with the key manufacturing hubs in Ghana, Senegal, Mozambique, Tanzania, Togo and Sri Lanka - plus a 50%-owned joint venture in Oman - all feeding a customer list that includes Exide, Amara Raja, Panasonic, Glencore, Toyota Tsusho and Schneider Electric.
- Africa is the manufacturing backbone outside India - step-down subsidiaries in Ghana, Senegal, Mozambique, Tanzania and Togo run lead, aluminium, plastic and rubber recycling plants, benefiting from duty-free access to the European Union for scrap imports.
- The Netherlands entity is the international holding company - Gravita Netherlands B.V. holds the stakes in the Oman joint venture, the Romanian rubber recycling plant, and the Sri Lankan operation, acting as the group's European and Middle Eastern coordination point.
- A disciplined approach to dormant entities - subsidiaries in Guinea, Mali, Jamaica, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Peru and South Africa have been voluntarily closed or dissolved when they had no business activity, reflecting a clean-up mentality rather than a sprawl of legacy shells.
- Customers read like an industrial who's-who - the 400-plus customer base across 37 countries includes battery makers, cable companies, auto-component suppliers and trading houses, with Amara Raja alone accounting for 20-30% of consolidated revenue under a yearly rolling contract priced off LME averages plus a dollar premium.