College student develops method turning red solo cups into clothing: 'It was a lot of trial and error'

Entrepreneur Lauren Choi recently told The Guardian, "It would be amazing if we lived in a plastic-free world."

That view could lead a person to quit using plastic, or even to encourage others to join efforts to reduce plastic use in their communities.

For Choi, however, it inspired a different action: the launch of her startup, The New Norm.

Choi was a senior engineering student at Johns Hopkins University in 2019, and on college campuses, colorful, typically red "party cups" are the drinking vessel of choice.

In her conversation with The Guardian, Choi cited several strong interests outside her course of study. There was her "longstanding concern about the dual climate and plastics crises," as well as a lifelong interest in fashion.

Remarkably, it appears that even before Choi graduated from Johns Hopkins in 2020, she managed to combine all three of those focuses with her academic background in engineering to arrive at the concept for The New Norm.

During her senior year, the ubiquity of colorful party cups — often called "red Solo cups" irrespective of brand — gave her the idea to turn what would otherwise become plastic in landfills into textile filaments.

Choi and a team of fellow students constructed an extruder to do just that, partnering with fraternities to gather "thousands" of party cups for raw material. After that, Choi took a weaving class so she could turn filaments into fabric.

She acknowledged that The New Norm "really tied [her] interests together," and in 2020, she solicited funding to continue turning things into bigger, better things.

From there, Choi began sourcing raw plastic material to launch her business in earnest. She told the paper that she quickly learned the recycling business was "the wild west," a layer of friction she didn't anticipate but took in stride.

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"We received batches [of plastic] that were unusable, or contaminated, or too mixed. It was a lot of trial and error," she recalled. Another early complication involved the first fabrics woven from the reclaimed plastic — it was fabric, but it still felt stiff and like plastic.

Choi called upon an expert, Jasmine Cox of Gaston College's Textile Technology Center. Cox worked with Choi to develop a "custom formula" for the extruders. 

After "a couple of years" of more trial and error and an infusion of capital from a few big corporations, Cox and Choi had a viable fabric texture.

The New Norm's first collection, which was made from "5,000 upcycled party cups," went live in late 2023 and sold out completely in two months. That might not sound like a lot of raw material, but Choi explained that the brand's process minimizes waste.

"3D knitting has a lot less waste compared to traditional cut-and-sew, where many fabric scraps are wasted. Instead, our pieces are knit straight out of the machine without any seams — it's just one full garment that doesn't need additional sewing," she said.

Sustainable fashion can be pricey, but The New Norm's pieces range from $45 to $85, and Choi is focused on the next step: partnering with others to "scale production and work with really large brands who are using significant quantities of materials."

Choi also hoped The New Norm's backstory would remind consumers that plastic has to go somewhere once it's used.

"Food containers, food packaging, that's something that we don't think about. Everyone throws it out daily, and there haven't been many solutions," Choi remarked.

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