{This Blog is part of “Uttarakhand@25 Blog Series” in collaboration with SDC Foundation and The Analysis}

It was his college friend’s wedding, and he drove all the way from Delhi to attend his friend’s big day. He walked into the wedding, struck by the pahadi tunes and women walking around with the nose rings as big as his mom’s bangle. 

At the gate, stood a waiter with neatly arranged chilled 250 ml packaged water bottles in a tray. He picked one of the bottles, took a few gulps, and then left it on a table, half finished, getting lost in conversation with friends he hadn’t met in a long time. 

A little later, the dancing began; a bittersweet combination of sweat, laughter and another bottle of water, again left half-finished, abandoned on a chair. By dinner, he was juggling multiple plates of food, along with yet another bottle of water, which only to misplace halfway through the meal. Someone passed him another one  as the night winded down. Before stepping out, he pockets 2 more of the bottles, for “just in case.” In total Six bottles opened, with most of them never finished.

Now expand that small, very common habit being carried out by 500 guests of a wedding; now you don’t just see a celebration, but you see a sea of discarded plastics, each 250ml plastic bottle telling the same story of carelessness of people.  

This is not a habit of only one person; it’s a collective ritual, repeated at every wedding, every party, every gathering across Uttarakhand.

Now zoom out, and notice the bigger picture, not just one wedding, but thousands across the state, not just a few thousand discarded plastic bottles, but millions across the state.

A Statewide Reckoning: Weddings & Water Bottle Waste Across Uttarakhand

As of July 2025, 301,526 marriages have been registered; translating to about 1,634 weddings per day. The numbers work out to be over 600,000 weddings held per year, state-wide.

Even if we conservatively estimate 300,000 weddings annually across the state, and apply the same bottle usage (500 guests × 5 bottles each) , then we get:

300,000 weddings × 500 guests × 5 bottles = 750 million 250 ml water bottles wasted in weddings alone every year.

Three quarters of a billion bottles turning into plastic footprints across Uttarakhand: on floors, trails, riverbanks, dumping grounds, in Dev Bhoomi. 

Beyond Weddings: A Full-State Plastic Crisis

Weddings are only one of the many contributors leading to this plastic filled crisis, few other contributors to this pressing crisis spreads across:

1. Tourist hotspots generate surging plastic waste, solid waste jumps ten folds during peak season, a significant portion made up of single-use plastics.

   
   

2. Adding in the bottled water sold at tea shops, trek routes, pilgrim hubs, political rallies, and the small insignificant bottles becomes a megawatt drain on Uttarakhand’s fragile ecosystem.

   
   

The 250ml Crisis

The 250 ml plastic bottle was never about thirst; it was about convenience. A quick grab, a few sips, and it’s discarded before the cap is even entirely taken off the bottle. Too small to truly quench, too easy to forget; too many to ignore, these bottles multiply into mountains of waste at every wedding, at every gathering.

We don’t want to wait the extra ten seconds it takes to fill a glass at a water station. Guests feel it’s easier to grab and forget than to hold onto a glass through the evening. Even caterers love this idea, no need to monitor refilling counters, no mess of spilled water, no manpower tied up in keeping jugs filled. Just stack the cartons, load the bottles on a table, and the job is done.

It’s convenience disguised as efficiency. But this “shortcut” isn’t really about saving time, it’s about passing the problem along. 

The guest saves ten seconds, the caterer saves a staff member, but the state unwantingly inherits thousands of bottles of waste in a single night.

Uttarakhand at 25: A Silver Jubilee, A Golden Chance

On 9 November 2025, Uttarakhand turns 25. A silver jubilee is not just a milestone, it’s a moment to decide what story we tell next. Do we mark it with convenience and waste; or with pride and responsibility?

Let’s Drop the Extra 0.As Uttarakhand turns 25, let’s say goodbye to 250 ml and ban the menace in the state.  

Let 750 million fewer bottles be Uttarakhand’s story to tell. 

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Rochna Sharma is a retired Wing Commander at the Indian Air Force.

[The opinions expressed herein are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University, SDC Foundation, and The Analysis.]

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The series is curated by an editorial team led by Anoop & Rishabh (SDC Foundation), with Kanha, Visakha, Gautam and Alind from SCLHR and the team at The Analysis.

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You can contribute to this series by submitting your write-ups to contactsdcuk@gmail.com. 

To access the submission guidelines, please visit www.sdcuk.in/submissions.