About TerraKai
Seven decades of recycling.
One operating system.
The lineage
The Chaudhry family’s recycling lineage began in 1956 — first as Chaudhry Industries, a joint family business in Darukhana, Mumbai, working in scrap metals and industrial recycling.
Over the decades that followed, the family separated and Salasar Balaji Ship Breakers was founded. In 1983, the yard began operations at Alang — the world’s largest ship-recycling centre on India’s western coast.
In 2015, the yard achieved compliance with the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships — the IMO treaty on which the European Union’s own Ship Recycling Regulation is built.
The yard today holds full Statements of Compliance from Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK, Japan) and RINA (Registro Italiano Navale, Italy), both members of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS). It also holds full ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environmental), and ISO 30000 (ship-recycling management) certifications via IR Class. The yard’s full EU SRR Statement of Compliance audit is currently in progress — RINA pre-audit approval has been obtained. These credentials, and the e-waste cert pipeline that follows from them, are mapped on the audit & compliance page.
This is what TerraKai inherits.
Selected milestones
Seven decades.
1956
The Chaudhry family begins recycling work in Darukhana, Mumbai
As Chaudhry Industries — a joint family business in scrap and industrial recycling
1983
Salasar Balaji Ship Breakers begins operations at Alang
2010
International dismantling project — military equipment, Kuwait
Large labour mobilization, complex hazardous-material handling, recovered scrap returned to India
2015
Hong Kong Convention compliance achieved at the Alang yard
ClassNK and RINA Statements of Compliance issued
2018–2019
Two VLCCs demolished under HKC discipline, audited by ClassNK
Very Large Crude Carriers — the largest class of merchant ship
2023
KTPS Kothagudam thermal power-plant decommissioning
720 MW · ~125,000 metric tons of structural recovery — the largest thermal power-plant demolition undertaken in India to date
2024
Copper and aluminium cable-recycling facility commissioned in Maharashtra
E-waste-adjacent capability — direct bridge to TerraKai
2026
Forward
Terrakai Recycling Private Limited incorporated
Q1 2027
Forward
TerraKai e-waste plant commissioning at Palghar district, Maharashtra
Continuous capabilities
- — Ship recycling at Alang — 1983 to present
- — International scrap-import operations across multiple ship classes and demolition sources — multi-decade, ongoing
- — Project-basis heavy industrial demolition
- — Copper and aluminium cable recycling, Maharashtra — 2024 to present
From ships to circuit boards
India’s waste stream has changed. Steel ships gave way to electronic equipment, telecom infrastructure, and the printed circuit boards inside every server, switch, and storage array a modern enterprise retires each year.
India’s E-Waste (Management) Rules 2022 and the Extended Producer Responsibility framework establish the regulatory floor. There is no IMO treaty for electronics — no Hong Kong Convention equivalent. The Palghar facility, commissioning Q1 2027, meets that floor from day one, with the documentation discipline of an IMO-audited yard layered on top.
TerraKai is being built above that floor.
The discipline the Alang yard earned under ClassNK and RINA audit — documented at the source, accounted for at the output, audit-trail by default — is the operating system TerraKai will apply to electronic waste from Q1 2027, across six documented service streams. Terrakai Recycling Pvt Ltd is a new legal entity, distinct from Salasar Balaji Ship Breakers Pvt Ltd, but operated by the same family with the same documentation regime. TerraKai’s own facility certifications (MPCB, CPCB EPR, R2v3) are in progressive sequence, calibrated to plant commissioning.
Who runs TerraKai
Abhishek Chaudhry
Co-Founder, Terrakai Recycling
Third-generation operator. Inherited the family’s ship-recycling yard at Alang — ClassNK and RINA certified, Hong Kong Convention compliant. He brings the same documentation regime — full material accounting, chain-of-custody verification, hazardous-substance audit trail — to electronic waste, supported by an engineering platform he is designing for the operation: barcoded intake, batch-level traceability, weighbridge-to-output reconciliation.
LinkedIn ↗ Aditi Chaudhry
Co-Founder, Terrakai Recycling
Co-founded TerraKai with Abhishek and leads commercial relationships and partnerships. Builds and holds the procurement pipeline across IT, banking, and telecom that will make consistent, auditable feedstock flow possible. The operator the team turns to when the question is whether a customer relationship will survive a difficult quarter.
LinkedIn ↗A note on the name
TerraKai — Terra (Latin: earth; from terre rare, the rare metals we recover) and Kai (Japanese: recovery and restoration; Chinese: triumph). Earth, recovered.
Seven decades of the family’s recycling are not background to TerraKai. They are the operating system TerraKai runs on.