Small plastic water bottles are adding to plastic problem: Nithin Kamath

Zerodha founder highlighted the issue of increased use of small plastic bottles at hotels and airports which is aggravating the problem of plastic waste in the country

Zerodha founder Nithin Kamath took to Twitter on Friday to express his concern about the plastic waste problem arising out of small plastic water bottles. Kamath believes that the plastic problem is getting out of hand.

He said that the size of the bottles has been getting smaller over the years and that "ridiculous" small bottles are adding to the already massive plastic problem.

The billionaire raised the question of how plastic water bottles are getting smaller with time and how their easy availability in hotels and airports is adding to the problem.

"While it is hard to completely get rid of plastic water bottles from our lives, I don't get why they are getting smaller. They're adding to the already massive plastic problem. The 200ml bottles at hotels & airports are ridiculous because customers have the ability to spend," he said.

Kamath explains how he ends up using more bottles instead of just using one big bottle in case he forgets to carry his own personal water bottle while travelling.

"I end up having to use more bottles vs just using one whenever I am travelling and not carrying my own bottle," he added in a series of tweets.

The 43-year-old billionaire also said that manufacturing expenditure on these bottles does not make sense to him, as according to him both cost the same.

"The economics of it are also weird. The cost for the manufacturer is almost the same, so sachetisation must be increasing sales quite a bit and hence the plastic waste," he added.

Kamath made a case for government intervention to curb the use of these smaller plastic water bottles to reduce plastic waste. He further added that people are spending on plastic and not water.

"Maybe there should be some restrictions from the government on this? Otherwise, we might continue the trend of 1lt to 500ml to 200ml & 100ml or a single-sip plastic bottle in the future. And yeah, when we buy a plastic water bottle, we primarily pay for the plastic, not water," he concluded.

India produced around 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste from 2019 to 2020, according to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change data.

In 2022, India banned the manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of identified single-use plastic items like thermocol, plastic sticks, cutlery, invitation cards, plastic flags and other such items that have low utility and high littering potential.