Q: What's in a name? A: Brand's future

Reusable cups turn into art installations. Used plastic morphs into new bags. Paintings materialize out of paper straws.

I was immediately drawn into this magic at a downtown Shanghai mall as I walked past a pop-up stand of HeyTea, the country's cheese-topping milk tea chain.

Under a campaign dubbed "HeyTea Inspirational Lab", some 1.7 million plastic straws have been saved to fashion 15,000 single-use cups in four months.