Editor’s note: This multi-part series explores a report from Beyond Plastics about the recyclability claims for polypropylene cold drink cups from Starbucks. Part 1 explores what the report reveals about recycling. In Part 2, the recycling industry responds to the group’s allegations.
In 2006 British mathematician and data scientist Clive Humby famously said, “Data is the new oil,” and the rise of AI at eye-watering speeds suggests he was onto something.
This year, commemorating the 20th anniversary of his prescient observation, he said: “My point in 2006 [was] that like oil, [data] needed processing to make it useful but by doing so it created new industries and the second Industrial Revolution. That in its crude form it is often not useful and that byproducts of it can be dangerous and inflammable.” (Emphasis added.)
So how does this relate to recycling? The persistent trend of using trackers to find out where consumers’ recycling is really going is, at its heart, a data exercise. The most recent example is the Beyond Plastics report aiming to test recyclability claims about polypropylene cold-drink cups from Starbucks.
With this in mind, Plastics Recycling Update took a closer look at the Beyond Plastics data, and at the conclusions the organization drew.
‘Data doesn’t lie’
At first the data may appear alarming – and damning. “Data doesn’t lie,” according to a University of Chicago Data Science Institute post on social media that amplified the study.
Indeed, recycling of plastics is confusing, and countless brand claims and pledges have been dialed back quietly or very publicly, contributing to an erosion of public trust in recycling systems.
Critics continue to cite a dismal “plastics recycling rate” of 5-6%, typically referencing US EPA data. But understanding this seemingly credible number also requires context – the figure not only is from 2019 but also conflates all plastics, and is not specific to common polymers used in packaging, such as PET, HDPE and PP.
However, the whole of the 2019 EPA data did provide PET and HDPE bottle recycling rates, each around 23%, referencing the “50 States of Recycling” report from Eunomia Research & Consulting along with aluminum container manufacturer Ball Corp. In its updated report, Eunomia said US recycling rates had stagnated or declined as of 2021.
The industry’s own data isn’t exactly glowing either. The Recycling Partnership’s Polypropylene Recycling Coalition clocked an 8% rate for the polymer in its 2024 inaugural annual report. And PET bottle recycling fell by 2.3 points in 2024 to 30.2% from its peak the previous year, according to the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR).
Methodology matters
Data is a powerful and important tool, but interpreting it requires context, including an understanding of the methods used to collect the data, the parameters and so on.
Plastics Recycling Update asked Beyond Plastics about its methodology, to help interpret the study, but received no response. The emailed questions included the following, which have been lightly edited for clarity:
- One tracker stopped at a MRF, before proceeding to landfill. Why would this be excluded from the tally of trackers that ended up at MRFs, given that MRFs intend to eliminate contaminants before they can reach processing locations?
- Several trackers were placed in residential curbside bins due to a lack of in-store waste options. What is the status of these trackers?
- Why were the cups placed in Starbucks receptacles, when they are takeaway cups, rather than in residential collection?
On the last point, Closed Loop Partners told Plastics Recycling Update, “Our research has shown that the majority of to-go PP cups are not discarded in store but rather are discarded out of store or at home, as most of these beverages are consumed on the go. Given this, we have focused our work on the points in the value chain with the greatest opportunities to drive increased capture and material recovery.”
Closed Loop operates the Center for the Circular Economy, which works with brands, retailers and manufacturers to address material challenges, and was instrumental in expanding US curbside recycling access for PP cups.
Closed Loop added that expanding residential collection access for PP was an important first step to building consumer awareness and driving more material to recycling systems, and increasing capture of food-grade material.
Beyond Plastics responds
Although Beyond Plastics did not clarify their methodology, they did respond to other questions about conducting the study.
Asked whether the use of trackers contributed to cups being diverted from a recycling facility to landfill or an incinerator: “Beyond Plastics fastidiously followed the cups’ journeys via phones — from start to finish. The investigation tracked and documented the drop-off dates and final destination dates, as well as any additional stops.”
The group said they did not contact haulers or stores to see what happened to the trackers that never reached a final destination, but did not respond when asked to elaborate.
As to what would satisfy the group’s definition of “recycled”: “A ‘recycled’ state is a tracker that arrives at an actual recycling facility that re-processes plastic waste. Of course this is not a guarantee of recycling, but we would count it as such if any pinged from those facilities.”
It’s worth noting that best practices of scientific research and experimentation require “unobtrusive measures” – that the measurement tool (here, a tracking device) does not alter the behavior of the observed subject (PP cold-drink cups).
As has been extensively and publicly stated, foreign materials including tracking devices are contaminants in a recycling system, and are sorted out and discarded.
Two trackers stopped communicating after arriving at a Circular Services MRF in Austin, Texas. The company told Plastics Recycling Update they do not keep trackers when they find them, and typically separate electronics and battery-powered devices from recyclate to prevent fires.
“Every step in the process is optimized for material recovery,” Circular Services said in a statement. “What looks like a single act, like tossing a cup in a bin, sets off a sequence of handling and processing steps, including collection, sortation (often involving optical and AI-assisted technology), and processing to produce an input suitable for manufacturing supply chains.
“That complexity is exactly why simple tests can give misleading answers, and it’s why companies like ours, with no landfills to fall back on, are investing in the infrastructure and the transparency to show that recovery is real.”
Expanding on the data
In the end, Beyond Plastics reported on the fate of 53 tracking devices placed in Starbucks’ in-store recycling bins.
The group said 36 of those yielded usable data, meaning they pinged from a final verifiable destination. The other 17 were damaged or stopped transmitting en route.
Of the 36 “usable” trackers:
- 16 last pinged at landfills (1 of these stopped first at a MRF)
- 9 at waste-to-energy incineration facilities
- 8 at waste transfer stations
- 3 at MRFs
For five trackers that note they “went directly to landfill,” the span between deployment and last signal averaged 2.2 days.
In comparison, landfill-bound trackers that lacked detailed notes took an average of 5.1 days, but without more information, it is unclear whether they stopped at any facilities along the way.
Likewise, other trackers the group did include in the study had results that were inconclusive or lacked context.
10 trackers did not appear to leave Starbucks
More than 25% of the devices appeared to stay in the store. Beyond Plastics did not contact Starbucks to find out why this might have occurred, nor did the group explain how they determined that the tracker had continued to function properly.
5 were deployed during a blizzard
More than half of the 9 trackers that went quickly and directly to incineration were deployed in the Northeast amid a late February blizzard that paralyzed numerous cities in the region and disrupted collection for at least a week, market sources said at the time. Haulers in the region did not respond to requests for details of collection disruption, however.
9 terminated at transfer stations
Beyond Plastics included trackers last pinging at transfer stations in its non-MRF tally.
WM, the nation’s largest hauler and recycler, emphasized that a transfer station does not equate to a landfill. According to Ryan Nordt, executive director of recycling operations, many of the company’s recycling investments are capital-intensive, so WM operates a hub-and-spoke model, where recyclables often move through one or more transfer stations before reaching a larger MRF. “A lot of recyclables get transferred through transfer stations – it’s just the normal course of business for us.”
In that system, a polypropylene cup or tracker pinging at a transfer station simply indicates it is in transit, not that it has been discarded, and “the answer is absolutely no” to the idea that arriving at a transfer station automatically means going to trash.
Although Texas-based Circular Services does not operate transfer stations, the company confirmed that such stations serve as intermediate points for consolidating materials from communities and businesses in a given region.
“Because materials are unloaded, compressed, and reloaded for transport at these sites, it is not unlikely for a tracker to be jostled loose or damaged before it ever reaches a sorting line,” a Circular Services spokesperson said. “A tracker going silent at a transfer station doesn’t tell us much about where the material ends up; it tells us the tracker didn’t survive the trip to a final destination.”
Others were put in residential bins
Of trackers the group excluded from its results, 8 were put in residential recycling bins. Their apparent destinations were as follows:
- 1 went to a MRF in New Hampshire
- 1 stopped at two waste transfer stations in California
- 1 was declared to have gone to incineration in Massachusetts despite stopping first at a collection and transfer station in Maine
- 1 appeared to be lost during transit in New Hampshire
- 4 had no further information after being placed in residential bins in South Carolina
Interpreting the data – and what comes next
To be sure, even a detailed – and perhaps confusing – analysis of the study data does not prove or disprove any recycling claims (although a few interesting and likely unintended tangents arise). And still recycling rates stagnate, and consumers grow more confused and discouraged about recycling.
So how can a struggling industry leverage an abundance of data to help build trust? We’ll explore rebuilding credibility and encouraging public buy-in during the next and final installment of this series.
