Her design studio in Indonesia is changing the way the country looks at plastic and waste

Syukriyatun Niamah is only 29 years old, but she is already making an impact on both the design and sustainability industries in Asia. Robries was an idea Syukriyatun had while in college in 2016. With a background in product design, she found herself asking why plastic waste wasn’t a concern for more people, in particular, young adults. “There is no waste management here in Indonesia,” she said. “Everyone just throws it away and I was curious as to why people don’t care more. At the same time, people seemed to be asking, ‘What are you going to do if I do care?’”
To answer that question, Syukriyatun, along with three co-founders, started Robries in 2018. It is a design studio that creates high-quality, robust furniture pieces using discarded HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) bottle caps which are sorted, cleaned, shredded and then melted down into polymer sheets to be moulded and cut. Robries’ plastics are used in everything from stools and tables to facades and are known to be stain-proof, weatherproof and strong. On the sustainability front, the company has already upcycled over 200 million bottle caps, saving over 64 tonnes of plastic from landfills.
Initially, Syukriyatun experimented with different types of plastic, looking for the best way to contribute to sustainability in Indonesia and also for a material that would be impactful from a design perspective. As there were already many recycling centres for PET bottles in her native Surabaya, she settled on HDPE bottle caps, which are harder for those centres to manage. She discovered that “roasting” them created both a beautiful and sturdy material. It was also the inspiration for the company name, which amalgamates “roasted bottles and accessories”.
To acquire the raw materials, Robries works with waste banks in Indonesia to collect and sort the bottle caps, in exchange for money. After which, the company combines the colours they want to work with and melt down the caps into the polymer plastic sheets. “We don’t use any additive filler,” explained Syukriyatun. “For us it’s 100 per cent colour from the caps.” This mix is what gives the materials its terrazzo-like finish. The results are stylish and sleek, not to mention durable. Robries has been known to buy back its furniture (if the cafe who uses it closes, for example), polish and refine it, and then resell it, contributing to the cyclical economy.
However, it’s difficult to sell sustainably created products from “trash”, if people don’t understand the motivation behind it. Syukriyatun found this to be the case in Robries’ early days when she was bombarded with questions about the product whenever she tried to sell them.
“In 2018, it was tough because people didn’t really care about the environment in Indonesia, and every time we did a product activation, we spent more time educating people than selling the product. People didn’t understand why they would want to buy trash.” She credits the pandemic with giving people a “viral moment” to understand what they were trying to do. “Jakarta is known for being very polluted, but during the pandemic when no one was going out, the air quality suddenly became really good!” She laughed. “Suddenly everyone started to care about health and the environment, which made it easier for me to sell.”
During the pandemic, the brand also pivoted from large furniture to smaller homeware items such as vases, coasters and trays, which allowed them to continue their business and reach a larger audience, selling through online channels. Before the pandemic, Robries was about to embark on a project with Bali’s Potato Head, which had to be halted. However, Potato Head’s creative director, Daniel Mitchell, got back in touch after the pandemic while in the process of setting up his own design company, Space Available, which focuses on using recycled and upcycled materials in art, design, fashion and furniture. “This led to our first big export project that required 300 pieces,” recalled Syukriyatun. “Which allowed us to expand to a bigger workshop and hire more people. It also really raised awareness on what we do and led to more partnerships.”
Some of Robries’ other collaborators include Little Farms and Mavrx Coffee in Singapore. They are also well-known in Indonesia for their award-winning Sawarna stool, created alongside studiohand, and are currently part of the School of Tomorrow sustainability exhibition at New Bahru.
With distributors in Singapore, and potential partnerships in Taiwan, the Philippines and Australia, the future for Robries is looking bright. Syukriyatun is also looking to expand their capacity for next year, “And I want to continue innovating, whether  with a new material, or different sizes or thickness,” she said, conscious of wanting to remain an innovator in her field.