An anti-plastics advocacy group is pressing Starbucks to remove recycling labels on its plastic cups, highlighting the debate over companies’ responsibility to make sure their products are actually being recycled.
Beyond Plastics, a nonprofit based at Bennington College, released a report Wednesday detailing the results from their investigation that found more than half of tracking devices planted on plastic cups ended up in landfills or at an incinerator.
The group glued 53 Bluetooth trackers to cups and placed them in Starbucks’ in-store recycling bins. Of the 36 trackers that provided data, 16 wound up at landfills, nine landed at incinerator facilities, eight were last detected at waste transfer stations and three made it to materials recovery facilities, or MRFs, where items are sorted and consolidated, according to the report.
This information, paired with Starbucks promoting their plastic cups as “widely recyclable,” shows the company’s’ “efforts to deceive consumers about the recyclability of its cold cups,” said Judith Enck, president and founder of Beyond Plastics.
