Oct. 14, 2025

Good News for Red Solo Cups and hikers who like ice cream

Show Notes
Transcript

An engineering student named Lauren founded New Normal Collective to turn discarded red solo cups into soft sweaters and beanies; the Red Dress Project, a 14-year endeavor featuring embroidery by 380 people from 51 countries, will be recognized by Guinness World Records; a conservation project secured 22,000 acres of land and a road in Montana, enhancing public access; German tourists Gina and Marina treated their safari driver to his first safari experience in South Africa; and a mysterious man in an ice cream cone costume delighted hikers on Huron Peak by handing out frozen treats over Labor Day weekend.

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Caloroga Shark Media. Hey, I'm Johnnie Mack with five good

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news stories. Good news if you're at a frat or

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at a frat party. A college student is making headlines

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for her clothing line that takes thrown away red solo cups.

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You know the kind takes cups thrown away after frat

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parties and turns them into soft sweaters and beanie caps. Yeah.

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Lauren is an engineering student. She found a New Normal

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collective after discovering a way to turn solo cups into textiles.

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She was always interested in sustainable fashion, but after she graduated,

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she was able to secure grant funding to buy an

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extruder machine, which can turn shredded plastic cups into thread.

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She worked with two other engineering colleges to provide a

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non toxic natural material that would turn icky plastic solo

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cups into a soft, comfortable, nitwear ready yarn. No artificial

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dyes are used in the process, as the pastel shades

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of yellow, green, blue, and pink come from the solo

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cups themselves. Very interesting. Meanwhile, the Red Dress Project is

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allowing people around the world to tell their stories through embroidery.

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The silk dress has been worked on for over fourteen

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years by three hundred and eighty various folks from fifty

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one countries. They've added an estimated billion and a half stitches.

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The Red Dress is now complete. It will be recognized

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in the Guinness World Records twenty twenty six as the

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largest collaborative embroidery project. Starting in two thousand nine, pieces

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of the dress traveled the world while it was being

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worked on. Made from eighty seven panels of Burgundy silk dupion,

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It's been embellished by three hundred and sixty seven women

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and girls, eleven men and boys, and two non binary artists.

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This thing's been to Palestine, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, China, Nigeria, Namibia.

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All of the commission embroiderers were paid for their work

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and will receive a portion of the ongoing exhibition fees

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and merchandise sales. Nice job by a conservation project. They

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acquired a twenty two thousand acre property from some owners.

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This over by the National Monument in Montana. The acquisition

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of some land and a three point eight mile access

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road will give residents in northwestern Montana and Idaho a

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straight shot to the National Monument's Interior. The CEO said

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this once in a generation opportunity to secure an important

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piece of ecologically and culturally significant land is equally important

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as a way to return public access to the people

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so they could explore, hunt, and recreate on land that's

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been off limit for many years. The previous owners didn't

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want to let people on their lands. Now there's a road.

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Some German tourists hooked up their safari driver. Gina and

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Marina were in South Africa. They were staying in a

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private game reserve about two hours from Cape Town. Their

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driver mentioned he'd never been on a safari. Gina and

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Marina decided to hook him up. They bought up a

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ticket to join them. Gina said, the best part of

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the day for him, I think was when he saw

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the lions and took pictures of them. And this is

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pretty awesome. So you're out there, you're hiking in Colorado,

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and all of a sudden a man shows up. He's

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wearing an ice cream cone costume. He was handing out

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frozen treats. Why, no one sure, but he had ice

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cream sandwiches and ice cream bars and dry ice. He

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was up in Huron Peak over Labor Day, weekend. Word

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spread quickly to hikers. Blaine was out hiking. I heard

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about this and said, eventually we got up to the

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top of the mountain and tired, hot, thirsty, and didn't

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know it, but ice cream was just kind of what

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we wanted. Photos on social media show the man in

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a camping chair with a beer in the armrest, wearing

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sunglasses and a fake mustache. Sounds like a cool dude.

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Those your five good news stories. Have a great day.