One Man's Trash Proves To Be A UCLA Student's Clothing Line

New Products and Innovation

One Man's Trash Proves To Be A UCLA Student's Clothing Line

Miranda Kim, the co-founder of SoulFace Apparel, is putting clothes on people's backs by taking trash off their beaches. Kim, just a freshman at UCLA, created Soulface to help bring awareness to the environmental plight of discarded plastics and waste (Image via Kim)

In 2016, Miranda Kim took reduce, reuse and recycle to the next level when she and her sister decided to start a company that turned post-consumer plastic into clothing. Inspired by the large amounts of litter on her native Californian beaches, she co-founded SoulFace Apparel with her sister Rebecca Kim and friend Joseph Darcey-Alden.

The company, which is dedicated to "combatting rapidly growing plastic pollution and its deadly effects," makes its clothing in the United States using only recycled plastics and fibres and none of the toxic chemicals found in most clothes made overseas.

In addition to t-shirts, they sell also stainless steel water bottles to reduce the use of single use plastic bottles. In starting SoulFace, Kim made it her mission to educate both herself and others on the lesser known impacts of plastic waste.

Says Kim, "SoulFace Apparel is a start-up inspired by the need to reduce our plastic waste and provide a sustainable method of reusing recycled material. Plastic makes up about 90% of the trash in the ocean, and its effects are devastating to both marine life and humans. Toxic particles end up in the fish we eat, the water we drink and even our table salt. Our mission is to raise awareness of this global issue by supplying custom printed tees made of post-consumer plastic."