Kami is a colourful, slimline, curved metal and woven plastic chair with the plastic weave made entirely from bottle tops taken from landfill. Bottle tops are picked and sorted into colours and then processed in a plastics extrusion machine and turned into a beautiful and durable plastic yarn. The process of creating this innovative chair supports local communities in Indonesia whilst reversing the carbon footprint. The colours are a direct result of existing bottle tops – red (Coca-Cola) yellow (Lipton Tea) and blue (aqua), and prove that recycled waste can be beautiful.

Reddie is an Australian business with production in Indonesia and sustainability is at the heart of the business. When understanding the waste problem globally, it was found that countries such as Australia export their plastic waste to Asia. With a business in both countries, there was the opportunity to address this situation and find solutions.

The search for a durable woven plastic material from bottle top waste was challenging until we discovered Djamu Indonesia, a social enterprise that was turning bottle top waste into a woven filament for baskets. Together REDDIE and Djamu worked to further develop their recycled yarn filament to be used on the Kami woven chair.

Photography: Muliadi Utomo