Samiksha Govil always dreamt of creating an alternative to plastic bottles. The government’s curb on single-use plastic made her further realise the urgent need for alternatives.
In 2016, she set up her own packaging solutions company and began to explore alternatives to plastic bottles. After two years and immense research and trials, her Noida-based company Kagzi Bottles has produced a 100 percent compostable paper bottle, “the first-of-its-kind in India”.
These sustainable bottles are made using paper waste, which is currently being sourced from a company in Himachal Pradesh. This waste paper is mixed with water and chemicals to break it down, resulting in pulp.
The mixture is moulded into the desired shape — two halves of a bottle. Both halves are spray-painted with a water-resistant solution, and joined together. Kagzi Bottles is a bootstrapped company and currently produces bottles only for nion-biodegradable products such as shampoos, conditioners, and lotions. These bottles are cheaper than plastic and are priced at approximately Rs 19 to Rs 20.
Each bottle takes two days to make at present, but the team has plans to produce more from a plant based in Hyderabad. Samiksha and her team believe that these biodegradable bottles have the potential to replace plastic as a packaging material in the future.
