Old is gold: Metal recycling shines amid high prices

MUMBAI: Indians' love for gold is ever shining but the steep prices of the yellow metal over the past several quarters have nudged consumers to find ways to ease burden on their pockets while keeping the heft and appeal of jewellery intact. For instance, consumers are buying less of new gold but instead recycling or exchanging the gold stored in their households for new gold to save on some money. Every time you give your old jewellery to a gold retailer, it gets recycled, which means you are reusing gold that you already have and using its value to buy something new, in effect reducing the burden of imports.

India's gold imports increased in value from $58 billion in FY25 to $72 billion in FY26, govt data showed. At P.N. Gadgil & Sons, the proportion of gold exchange and recycling, which stood at nearly 25-30% up to FY25, has significantly increased to around 50-60% in recent quarters, said COO & CFO Aditya Modak, adding that in such cases, old gold is usually taken at credit for purchase and the remaining is settled in cash. The volume of new gold purchases has seen a 30% decline in gram terms over recent quarters, said Modak. "This shift indicates that rising gold prices and ongoing volatility have prompted consumers to increasingly opt for recycling and upcycling existing gold jewellery instead of purchasing entirely new pieces," said Modak.

Tata's Titan, which has been pushing exchanges through its brand Tanishq, said that exchange programmes helped record a 35% growth in each of gold and studded products portfolios alongside new collections. "Over 30 lakh Indians have partaken of Tanishq's gold exchange programmes for years, recycling close to 1.7 lakh kg of gold," the brand had said in a note last year, explaining that recycling is not a new strategy adopted by consumers. However, in recent times, that share has only grown, driven by volatile gold prices. "Industry wide, there has been a significant increase in gold recycling," said Saumen Bhaumik, MD at Tata's CaratLane for which gold exchanges shot up by 15-20% than usual in the March quarter.

Industry executives expect consumers to tweak their buying patterns on PM's call to avoid non-essential purchases of gold for a year. Bhaumik, estimates people to move to lower gold caratages and opt for silver and light diamond jewellery for regular usage. "The brand might have to revise its medium to long-term forecast after assessing the impact over next few weeks," said Modak.

For BlueStone Jewellery, exchanges have doubled year-on-year, with the brand offering more benefits to consumers going for exchanges so that they can get higher value, said founder & CEO Gaurav Singh Kushwaha. Many consumers are now looking at old jewellery not as something to simply store away but as an asset that can be redesigned into something more contemporary and wearable, said Ankur Daga, co-founder at Angara.


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