Upset with littering, a Pune mountaineer makes hotels eat drinking straws

Straws, among other plastic products, have a huge environmental impact as they are non-degradable. According to Ocean Conservancy, an organisation that is working to protect oceans, “Every year, plastic straws and stirrers are among the top 10 items collected during Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. In fact, volunteers have collected nearly 14 million straws and stirrers from beaches and waterways worldwide over the 35-year history of the International Coastal Cleanup.”

Jain’s inspiration was similar, though it came on the slopes. “I have been a mountaineer since I was in college in 2010. While backpacking, I used to see a lot of glistening plastic packets and store packaging on the streets. Sometimes, there are landfills that are like mountains,” she says. At the same time, she saw mountain villagers fill their lives with natural products and use these repeatedly without generating waste.

“It is the hotels and hospitality industry in regions like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand that litter the surroundings,” she says. Unable to ignore it, Jain sourced a set of bamboo toothbrushes and drinking straws that were making waves abroad and retailed these on Facebook.

Her first client was a yoga retreat in Goa. “The owner really liked the products and suggested that I explore the big market in Goa. This gave me an idea to source bamboo and create products,” she says.

Atithyaa, a startup in Pune run by mountaineer Ruchi Jain. (Express Photo by Pavan Khengre)

“I realised that we would need volumes in this industry. Few people know that Maharashtra has major bamboo plantations but, unlike the eastern states of India, we do not use bamboo as much in our everyday lives. We began to manufacture our products while also working to spread awareness about sustainability,” she says.

A few years before the pandemic, two of India’s top hotel chains said that they were generating 1 tonne and 750 kg of waste every day and had tied up with a solutions provider to manage this. Today, major hospitality brands are pushing the sustainable lifestyle — making startups such as Atithyaa an important part of the chain.

A few hundred hotels have contracts with them while others place orders according to requirements. The startup opened its doors in 2019 even as COVID arrived on the threshold of the world. “We spent the COVID era, when there were zero sales, spreading awareness. With the very small hotels that cost a few hundred per night, it took time. They don’t see the product, they check the price first. We reduced our pricing so that they could manage,” says Jain, who still visits a mountain and a sea every year.

If littering has reduced, it has not on a grand scale. And with tourism rising post-pandemic, startups such as Atithyaa have a long way to go.