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India’s hospitality industry is waking up to a silent pollutant: "Plastic". While many hotel chains are still searching for alternatives, Club Mahindra has already turned sustainability into action. Partnering with WAE, the brand has installed in-house Glass Bottling Plants (GBPs) across its resorts systems that purify, bottle, and reuse glass containers, completely eliminating the need for single-use plastic bottles.

The decision to ditch plastic bottles stems from Club Mahindra’s belief that true hospitality means caring not only for guests but also for the planet. These resorts previously generated thousands of discarded bottles annually and now, by adopting GBPs, the brand is cutting down waste, reducing carbon emissions, and setting a new sustainability benchmark for Indian hospitality.

In this written interview, Ms. Binita Singh, Head – Brand Advocacy at WAE FNB, shares how the initiative came to life and what it means for the industry’s path toward plastic-free operations.

1. What drove Club Mahindra to invest in in-house Glass Bottling Plants instead of choosing external suppliers or lighter-touch fixes like recycled plastic?

For Club Mahindra, sustainability represents a strategic imperative rather than a marketing narrative. Establishing in-house glass bottling plants reflects a shift from symbolic greening to scientific precision. Each refillable bottle represents measurable reductions in plastic waste, carbon footprint, and logistics emissions, while ensuring microbiological purity and process traceability that external suppliers simply can’t match. From a systems perspective, the approach embodies circular economy design, integrating closed-loop water reuse, data-driven quality control, and lifecycle cost efficiency. Yet, beyond its technical merit lies its storytelling power: a gleaming bottle that carries both water and intent.

A brand’s conscience is its best campaign. In choosing glass over plastic, Mahindra Holidays doesn’t just serve guests — it educates them, proving that luxury and responsibility can, indeed, share the same bottle.

2. Can you walk us through how a GBP works inside a resort, from purification to bottling and reuse?

In a well-run resort, a Glass Bottling Plant is less an accessory and more a living ecosystem of sustainability — a miniature water laboratory operating behind the scenes to turn the everyday act of drinking water into an act of environmental stewardship.

The process begins with the resort’s existing water source — usually borewell, municipal, or treated surface water. This water is passed through a multi-stage purification system comprising sand and carbon filtration, reverse osmosis (RO), and ultraviolet (UV) or ozonation disinfection. These stages ensure physical, chemical, and microbiological purity, producing water that meets — or exceeds — BIS and WHO potable standards. The purified water is stored in stainless steel tanks, where it undergoes ozonation — an advanced oxidation process that prevents microbial growth without altering taste. This ensures that the water remains fresh, oxygen-rich, and safe, even before bottling.

Fresh and Used glass bottles return to the plant after collection from guest rooms or dining areas. They enter a multi-step washing tunnel, where hot water, alkaline detergents, and high-pressure rinses remove residues and biofilm. A final UV or ozonated water rinse ensures sterilization.

The sanitized bottles move to the filling and capping line — a fully enclosed, automated setup where purified water is dispensed and sealed under sterile conditions. The bottles are then coded, labelled, and inspected for integrity and hygiene. At each stage, samples are tested for pH, TDS, turbidity, and microbial content, ensuring the process remains compliant with ISO 22000, BIS, and internal quality protocols. Every batch is traceable — a scientific guarantee that the water you drink today can be traced back to its purification cycle.

After consumption, bottles are collected, cleaned, and refilled, creating a closed-loop system that eliminates single-use plastic and significantly reduces the resort’s carbon footprint. Each glass bottle is reused up to 60–80 times, making it both economically efficient and ecologically intelligent.

3. Beyond cutting waste, what measurable impact have you seen so far, for example, in cost savings, logistics, or guest perception?

From a quantitative standpoint, the impact is both tangible and traceable:

  • Plastic elimination: Each resort displaces an estimated 150,000–250,000 single-use plastic bottles annually, directly reducing waste generation and landfill dependency.
  • Carbon reduction: By bottling on-site, the group cuts down transportation emissions by up to 60–70%, thanks to the removal of logistics associated with bulk water deliveries.
  • Cost efficiency: Once capital investment is amortized, the per-litre cost of water drops by approximately 30–40%, with savings reinvested into other green initiatives.
  • Operational resilience: On-site purification and reuse systems reduce reliance on external suppliers, insulating operations from supply chain volatility — an often-overlooked sustainability dividend.

But perhaps the most profound return is reputational capital. Guest feedback reflects a marked rise in brand trust, perceived quality, and satisfaction, with travellers increasingly equating the elegant glass bottle on their table with both luxury and conscience.

4. Many hotels say they want to cut plastic but struggle with rollout and scale. What made implementation successful in your case?

Many hospitality brands intend to cut plastic; few manage to scale it beyond a pilot. Success comes not from slogans, but from systems thinking — aligning sustainability with engineering precision, behavioural design, and leadership intent.

The key is treating the Glass Bottling Plant (GBP) not as a statutory obligation, but as a core operational upgrade. We integrated this initiative into the resort’s Quality, Environment, and Safety Management Systems, ensuring accountability, performance tracking, and data-backed validation at every stage. Implementation succeeded because it wasn’t just environmental — it was institutional. Cross-functional teams of engineering, housekeeping, F&B, and sustainability officers co-owned the process, supported by standard operating procedures, microbiological audits, and continuous training modules that built internal competence.

5. What operational adjustments are required for hotels that want to introduce a similar system? (staffing, maintenance, upfront setup, etc.)

Introducing a Glass Bottling Plant (GBP) within a hotel is not a plug-and-play sustainability fix — it’s an operational transformation that touches water engineering, housekeeping, logistics, and brand experience. Success lies in harmonizing precision with practicality.

The first requirement is dedicated space — typically 25–50 sq. m. — for filtration, filling, and bottle-washing lines, ideally near a stable water source and utility connections. The system includes RO purification units, ozonation tanks, stainless steel pipelines, automatic rinsing-filling-capping machinery, and bottle inspection zones. Initial capital costs vary by capacity but are often recovered within 18–24 months through reduced packaging and logistics expenditure.

A trained technical operator (usually from engineering or F&B services) oversees daily operations, supported by attendants for washing, bottling, and quality checks. Staff undergo certified training in hygiene, water microbiology basics, and preventive maintenance. Periodic audits reinforce process discipline.

The GBP demands a preventive maintenance schedule — filter replacements, periodic calibration of RO systems, ozonation checks, and line sanitization. Daily TDS, pH, and microbial tests ensure compliance with BIS and WHO standards, while third-party audits verify long-term integrity.

Efficient bottle collection, cleaning, and redistribution rely on inter-departmental coordination. Housekeeping and F&B teams must integrate new SOPs for bottle tracking, segregation, and handling, ensuring a closed-loop reuse cycle.

6. Looking ahead, do you see this model spreading across the wider Indian hotel market, and what support or policy changes could speed that up?

Absolutely — the Glass Bottling Plant (GBP) model is poised to evolve from a niche sustainability initiative into an industry-wide operational standard. India’s hospitality sector is at an inflection point: sustainability has moved from the margins of marketing to the core of management science. And nothing demonstrates that shift more tangibly than a refillable glass bottle.

From a systems perspective, the scalability of GBPs rests on three accelerators:

  1. Economic rationale – As logistics and packaging costs rise, in-house systems increasingly deliver lower lifecycle costs and faster ROI (often under two years).
  2. Regulatory alignment – Emerging frameworks under the Plastic Waste Management Rules, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and potential carbon disclosure mandates are already incentivizing circular solutions.
  3. Cultural readiness – The post-pandemic guest values transparency, traceability, and tangible sustainability; glass bottling checks all three boxes with scientific credibility and aesthetic grace.

The hospitality sector is ready. With the right policy scaffolding, India could become the first major tourism market to make water truly circular — one bottle at a time.