Knitting Purpose and New Life from Textile Waste in Indonesia

As we head into April, Earth Day (April 22) is on many hearts and minds. Textiles, particularly discarded clothes, are among the top pollutants in our world’s landfills, fueling greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Laura Abigail Simbolon, a high school student from Jakarta, Indonesia, feels a deep commitment to nature and the planet. After attending Wharton Global Youth’s Essentials of Entrepreneurship program, she set out on a social entrepreneurship mission, launching her project, Our Commuknitty, which diverts discarded cotton clothing from landfills, turns it into balls of yarn (see photo) and repurposes it into products like coasters — while also engaging the skills of differently abled artists in her city. “I realized that textile waste and also inclusivity in Indonesia were major, overlooked gaps that no one was trying to address,” she says.

Laura was among the 200 winners of the 2024 Diana Award for her teams’ work, and now, as a graduating senior, she is thinking about how she might replicate Our Commuknitty’s model in other countries. 

Be sure to click the arrow above to listen to our 20-minute conversation with Laura. An edited transcript appears below. 

Wharton Global Youth Program: Hello and welcome to Future of the Business World, coming to you from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

I’m Diana Drake, managing editor of the Wharton Global Youth Program, which delivers engaging Wharton business education to high school students worldwide. Through our programs, courses and competitions, we get the chance to meet lots of passionate young innovators and changemakers each year. This podcast is an opportunity for us to hear directly from these students about their ideas and startups, while also exploring different business concepts and industry insights through the lens of student experiences. Once a month, we share that 20 minutes of student-led innovation.

We first met today’s guest on Wharton’s Philadelphia campus during our Essentials of Entrepreneurship summer program. She learned about the Future of the Business World podcast, and followed up when she was back home in Indonesia by filling out the pitch form on our Wharton Global Youth website. Already, I’m feeling her purpose.

Laura Abigail Simbolon, thank you for joining us on Future of the Business World!

Laura Abigail Simbolon: Hi, Diana, nice to speak with you.

Wharton Global Youth: Tell us about yourself. Where do you live and go to school?

Laura: Hi, my name is Laura. I’m from Jakarta, Indonesia. I’m currently a senior-year student at Mentari Intercultural School Jakarta, and I enjoy using my free time to read non-fiction books, to learn how to cook, and also to do Pilates.

Wharton Global Youth: Your organization Our Commuknitty keeps discarded textiles out of landfills, where they contribute to pollution, by turning them into yarns and then knitting new products from those materials. There is also a component of training and involving differently abled artists in this process. Let’s start with the pain point you are addressing. What exactly is textile waste and why is it a big problem in Indonesia?

Laura: I like to define textile waste in the most basic terms, as discarded or unused clothing that is no longer needed or used in production or in consumption. I think that this is a very concerning issue in Indonesia, especially because Indonesia has the fastest and the largest growing economy right now in the world. According to the National Development Agency, we’re projected to produce about 3.9 million tons of textile waste in 2030 annually. And right now, we’re at 2.3 million tons. So, that’s already an incredible amount, and we’re going even further than that. And sadly, not a lot of people know about this issue, because the government doesn’t do much about it. And these following years, since we’re projected to produce that much by 2030, it’s going to define our environmental steps in the future.

Wharton Global Youth: You mentioned the economy growing quickly, and a big part of that economy is textile manufacturing – clothing manufacturing, correct?

Laura: Yes. A lot of foreign firms actually outsource their labor here. And because of that, a lot of pollution is occurring.

Wharton Global Youth: Why are you passionate about this?

Laura: I’ve always been interested in fashion, and in late 2022, I learned how to knit from my grandma. So, it’s a very personal hobby. And when I was knitting, I realized that I could turn anything into yarn. I can turn my hair into yarn. I can even turn discarded clothes into yarn. And from that ideation, I realized, okay, why not use the old t-shirts that I never use anymore, or my old baby t-shirts, and it worked out perfectly. I managed to make that into yarn, and I managed to make that into new products, like coasters. At the time, my parents needed coasters, and I told them, it’s okay, I can knit them for you. You don’t have to buy anything.

I’m also very passionate about this project because I love socializing with people. I’m a very extroverted person, so I love meeting people with new backgrounds, and like meeting new people that are outside of my circle. Sometimes I have the tendency to just stick with my static group of friends, and I really want to meet new people. I also love designing new products as a byproduct of my passion for fashion.

Wharton Global Youth: Tell us about Our Commuknitty, which, by the way, is spelled, K-N-I-T-T-Y. How do you source materials? And can you walk us through the upcycling process, starting with an old t-shirt, for example, and then creating an entirely new product from it?

Laura: First, we typically get the waste from local businesses in Jakarta. They’re usually tailors, because they produce a lot of waste, and they don’t really know how to repurpose them. Aside from tailors, we also host a lot of clothing drives in schools. And it’s not just one school. We do it at schools all over Jakarta. That’s because I have a lot of unofficial school chapters around Jakarta. Afterward, me and my team gather and we create the items. What we’re looking for are clothes that have a t-shirt-like material – cotton and very stretchy. We don’t like using satin-like materials or stiff materials, because it’s a little hard to turn them into yarn. Usually, the clothes that we aren’t able to repurpose into yarns, we keep them for future products. Maybe we’ll innovate along the way on how to use them, and sometimes we even donate them to charities.

We [also give clothes] to Yayasan Wisma Cheshire, which is the organization of handicapped artists in Jakarta. They fold the t-shirts, and then they cut them into strips, and after cutting them into strips, they somehow make it into a continuous long yarn, and they make it into a ball of yarn. Afterward, they’re going to knit them into coasters. Right now, we’re only knitting coasters, but we are thinking of making plushies as well, but that’s a future idea for later.

Wharton Global Youth: Do you train them?

Laura: Only certain workers, because these are professional artists. They already have a long history with craftsmanship. But some artists don’t know how to knit, so we teach them how to knit.

Wharton Global Youth: What does the data look like? How large has your organization become? And also, can you quantify the impact you’re making?

Laura: Currently, we’ve repurposed [more than] 100 kilograms of textile waste (more than 220 pounds), and we’ve created the system of counting our impact by estimating that for every one kilogram of shirt, it produces around five to six yarns. So far, we’ve created [more than] 40 yards, and that will probably approximate to 175 to 200 kilograms. Aside from that, we’ve also employed 15 handicapped artists. But our employability is completely seasonal right now. It’s not like a fixed employment. We also have 30 members, and two of them are from Boston and Philadelphia.

Wharton Global Youth: I wanted to talk to you about having partnerships in other cities. Can you describe what that looks like?

Laura: Right now, we have three active partnerships only in Jakarta. That’s because I find it hard to delegate everything internationally because I’m 11 hours ahead of America. Sometimes communication with the two members I just mentioned before is hard. And sometimes they also need someone to lean against, because I’m the leader of the group, so they don’t know what to do. Right now, I feel like that’s the biggest issue that we have. I haven’t solved it yet, but hopefully along the way, I’ll find a solution on how to solve it.

Wharton Global Youth: And before we leave talking about Our Commuknitty specifically and some of the activities you do, how does it work on the upcycling side? Do you sell the coasters to people and then put that money back into the organization?

Laura: Yes, we do sell the coasters. I like to find local bazaars. Usually, there’s a bulletin on Instagram. And I like to apply to be a seller there. Sometimes I even sell them in school, or I sell them to my family members. So, after we get our sales revenue from the coasters, we always give them back to the workers, so it’s completely nonprofit.

Wharton Global Youth: I want to talk about the Diana Award. Our Commuknitty won this prestigious award. Can you tell us more about that and why you feel you were selected for this honor?

Laura: I completely believe that I won the Diana Award because I champion some of Princess Diana’s values. One of them that I feel is very seen in my project is inclusivity. And that’s because I value inclusivity. I witnessed the work discrimination firsthand. What I noticed is that in Indonesia, the labor culture is not very diverse. You don’t see many people who are handicapped, for example, and that’s because they’re not given the opportunities by employers. They immediately discourage them from working. They outcast them. And I really don’t like that. I personally have a family member who is also disabled, and I find it very difficult to see that such a bright and intelligent woman is being refused work just because she was born disabled. Because of that, I realized that Our Commuknitty should not just focus on sustainability, it should champion other values as well. That’s why I focused on working together with Yayasan Wisma Cheshire because I want to give an opportunity to them, and I want to prove to everyone that even handicapped people can do it. If they are willing and they’re able, then they can definitely do it. I think that’s very similar to what Princess Diana has done in her life and [through her] charities. She has always been a people’s princess, and she’s always been very caring and very gentle. I feel like I champion those values a lot.

Wharton Global Youth: Let’s move on to Essentials of Entrepreneurship for a minute. How did the program that you came to over the summer at Wharton help to support or to accelerate your passion project? Can you give us one example of how the education had an impact on your work?

“From the Wharton Global Youth program, I discovered my passion for social entrepreneurship. I never even knew social entrepreneurship was a thing and had a formal terminology.” –Laura Simbolon

Laura: Before my Wharton education, I had no clue how people started a business. I just thought that they had an idea, and then they just did it. But I never really thought about the whole operation behind it or the ideation behind it. From the Wharton Global Youth program, I discovered my passion for social entrepreneurship, which never came to my mind. I never even knew social entrepreneurship was a thing. I never knew that it had a formal terminology. The most memorable quote that I got from the program is from my lecturer who said that entrepreneurship was “all about filling in the gaps.” That quote, “filling in the gaps” really stuck with me. It became the main framework for starting Our Commuknitty. I realized that textile waste and also inclusivity in Indonesia were major, overlooked gaps that no one that I knew was trying to address. The program allowed me to collaborate and also to meet with people from diverse backgrounds. I got to meet a lot of my friends that I’m still friends with right now from that program. I met the member who is from Philadelphia in the program. I created lifelong friendships and also business partners.

Wharton Global Youth: What has been your biggest challenge through all of this?

Laura: I would say, [turning] this business from a negative profit to a positive profit. At first, I was working in a negative profit margin; I owed my parents money because I needed to borrow their money. I didn’t know how to give it back to them. But I realized that business is all about finding the most efficient production costs. So that’s what I did. I tried to [source] cheaper materials – like, for example, fabric scissors. I tried to find a cheaper fabric scissor compared to the ones I used to use and lend them to the handicapped artists. From there, I was able to make it into a positive profit, and I was able to give back the money to my parents.

Wharton Global Youth: You did mention that you are hoping to make new products, like plushies. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Laura: Right now, I’ve been having meetings with my members. I’m saying, ‘Okay guys, give me ideas. Give me good ideas that you think people our age would most likely buy.’ My nonprofit is completely democratic. I always listen to what my members have to say, and if the majority wins, then that’s what we’re going to do. So, my members said, ‘Okay, we need to make plushies.’ So, we’re already sketching the products. We’re thinking of making a plushie of our logo, which is a sheep. So, we’re thinking of doing that, but right now the main issue is how to create it, because, again, some artists are not well experienced with knitting, so we need to find a way to make time to teach them. Right now most of the members are in senior year. We have exams. It’s a very busy, tight schedule. But I think later in the summer, everything’s going to work out.

Wharton Global Youth: You will be graduating from high school soon. I talk to lots of students who put massive amounts of energy and time into building these types of projects, and then they leave for college or a job, and it all falls away. Sustainability has many meanings, right? How do you feel about that reality, and where does Our Commuknitty fit into your future?

Laura: I think it’s very unfortunate that a lot of students leave their meaningful work, because I believe that we’re all privileged and we should all give back to the community. I definitely see my project continuing in the future. I don’t intend to end it now or by the end of high school. Since I’m going to be moving to a whole different continent for college –maybe Europe or America — I hope I can make more chapters there. Maybe I can collaborate with the local people there to create these coasters or create the plushies and to create the yarns that way. Also, leadership and logistics would be easier. I also have a lot of members who are younger than me in Jakarta, so they’ll be in charge of the operations here and possibly in Asia. It’s going to be completely regional, the whole process of this organization. So maybe in the future, I’m going to be tackling the American or the European side, and my members here will tackle the Asian side.

Wharton Global Youth: The model seems like it’s very transferable, and you’ll be able to pick up where you left off.

Let’s end with our lightning round. Please answer these questions as quickly as you can.

What is something about you that would surprise us?

Laura: I wanted to be a historian, not an entrepreneur.

Wharton Global Youth: In a sentence, why does sustainability matter?

Laura: Because we have a responsibility to give back to nature.

Wharton Global Youth: Something about Jakarta that you really want the world to know.

Laura: Jakarta is nicknamed “The Durian.” The durian is our local fruit, or maybe it’s an Asian fruit, and it’s a very controversial fruit because it smells really bad. But a lot of people like the taste because it’s very unique. That’s kind of like an illusion of how people see Jakarta. A lot of people hate Jakarta because of the intense traffic, but a lot of people also love it because of the energy.

Wharton Global Youth:  One way you practice sustainability outside of Our Commuknitty?

Laura: I always bring my own tote bag.

Wharton Global Youth: When was the last time you did something for the first time?

Laura: Last night, I finished a TV show that consisted of four seasons, and I usually have a very short attention span and leave after the first episode.

Wharton Global Youth: What TV show?

Laura: Sherlock Holmes.

Wharton Global Youth: In a few words, how will your generation make an impact as the future of the business world?

Laura: More ethically, hopefully, because we’re more confronted with what’s going on in the world.

Wharton Global Youth: You are starting your own business-themed talk show. Who is your first guest and what is your first question?

Laura: My first guest will be the CEO of Huda Beauty, Huda Kattan, and I would probably ask her: How do you overcome industry skepticism, especially in the makeup market, where competition is very tight?

Wharton Global Youth: Laura, this has been a lot of fun talking to you today. Thank you for joining us on Future of the Business World.

Laura: Thank you for inviting me.

Conversation Starters

What is textile waste and why is it a big problem in Indonesia?

Laura Simbolon believes her generation will make an impact through ethical pursuits. What do you think she means by this and do you agree with that assessment? How will ethics fit into your future?

Do you participate in some way in a social entrepreneurship venture? Share your story in the comment section of this article.