The global fashion industry often presents itself as sustainable. But in practice, most clothing is still made from synthetic fibers derived from fossil fuels, tying apparel to plastic supply chains that drive pollution and climate risk. For younger consumers who care about environmental impact, this creates a gap between what brands promise and how clothes are actually made. Interest in cleaner products exists, but the supply chain is built for cheap, uniform materials made from newly produced plastic. Changing that system means starting at the level of raw materials. 

As an engineering major, Lauren Choi began to wonder whether discarded plastic could be turned into clothing people would actually wear. She started with red Solo party cups, a familiar campus waste item that is difficult to recycle. She built an extruder to melt the cups down and turn them into thin plastic filaments that could be used as yarn. Her first attempts failed: the fabric was stiff and uncomfortable, more like molded plastic than clothing. Batches of recycled plastic often arrived contaminated or mixed with other materials, forcing Choi to scrap them and start again. Progress came slowly as she stayed afloat through grant funding and outside support from textile and polymer research centers. After years of testing and adjustment, the material finally softened enough to be 3D-knitted into sweaters and beanies made from thousands of upcycled cups.

Those garments became the starting point for The New Norm, the apparel company Choi built around recycled plastic material. Once she launched, customers immediately responded as demand grew beyond what the company could offer with its first small runs. Still, making more garments exposed new limits. Scaling production meant working with factories and partners accustomed to uniform materials, while recycled plastic remained unpredictable. As orders grew, sourcing usable plastic became harder, pushing Choi back into refining the yarn again and again. What began as a campus experiment became an ongoing test of whether recycled plastic could work as a raw material inside a fashion industry long known for waste. “It would be amazing if we lived in a plastic-free world,” said Choi. “But if you look at the volume of virgin, synthetic fibers made annually, we’re talking billions of tons of material. There’s a long road to go.”

Questions: 

  1. What are some challenges that Lauren Choi encountered as she developed her company The New Norm?

  2. Do you think big clothing brands should follow The New Norm’s lead and start using upcycled materials? Why or why not?