Frappuccino lovers, rejoice: Your plastic to-go cups are now \u201cwidely recyclable.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to an announcement<\/a> made in February by Starbucks, the waste hauler WM (formerly known as Waste Management), and three recycling groups called The Recycling Partnership, GreenBlue, and Closed Loop Partners. In a press release, they said that more than 60% of U.S. households can now recycle cold to-go cups in their curbside recycling bins. This makes the cups eligible for one of GreenBlue\u2019s special labels featuring the familiar chasing arrows triangle and the words \u201cwidely recyclable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo-go cups are entering a new era of recyclability,\u201d the release said.<\/p>\n However, there\u2019s a catch. Just because a product can be collected for recycling doesn\u2019t mean it actually gets recycled. To imply otherwise is to conflate two very different numbers: the access rate and the real recycling rate. The former describes the number of people who are told they have \u201caccess\u201d to a recycling program for a given product. The latter\u2014the amount of plastic that is ultimately turned into new things\u2014is what really matters, from an environmental standpoint. There\u2019s not much evidence to suggest that the recycling rate for plastic cups is above 1 or 2%.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one of those situations where statistics can be very misleading,\u201d said Alex Jordan, a plastics researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. \u201cThey can pull a statistic that would make the public think that all these things are being recycled, but unfortunately even if you clean and dry and put your recycling in the recycling bin and it gets picked up, the overwhelming likelihood is that it ends up in a landfill or being burned for energy generation.\u201d<\/p>\n Jordan is one of several experts across government, academia, and industry who question the feasibility of recycling plastic cups. Polypropylene, the type of plastic Starbucks\u2019 cups are made from, is ubiquitous in packaging and foodware but not in recycling facilities. It\u2019s often contaminated with food or other types of plastic, difficult to sort, and expensive to process\u2014so most recyclers don\u2019t want it.<\/p>\n There \u201cjust aren\u2019t a lot of recycling centers that want to accept polypropylene,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n The manager of one recycling center in California, who asked not to be named, said the cup announcement represents little more than a convenient alignment of interests: It generates good press and revenue for GreenBlue, allows WM to collect more material, and casts Starbucks as eco-friendly without requiring it to move away from single-use plastic.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone wants that warm, fuzzy recyclable label,\u201d the manager said, adding that they suspected there would be no buyers for polypropylene even if they advertised it widely. \u201cOur phone would not ring. It\u2019s not something there are a lot of mills out there that are buying.\u201d<\/p>\n February\u2019s announcement is part of a yearslong effort to increase polypropylene collection and recycling. Helming the effort is The Recycling Partnership, or TRP, a nonprofit funded by plastic-producing companies and their lobbying groups<\/a>, including the American Chemistry Council, Exxon Mobil, and Coca-Cola.<\/p>\n It started in 2020, just two years after China stopped accepting the United States\u2019 plastic waste. At the time, polypropylene had a bit of an image problem. It was the second most common type<\/a> of plastic in Americans\u2019 municipal solid waste, but its recycling rate was far below that of other resins, at just 0.6%. (Polypropylene \u201ccontainers and packaging\u201d had a slightly higher rate of 2.7%.) Because cities could no longer ship their mixed plastic waste to China for reprocessing and there weren\u2019t enough domestic facilities to sell it to, many stopped accepting all but the simplest products: bottles and jugs made of PET or HDPE, labeled with the numbers 1 and 2, respectively.<\/p>\n All of this called into question the legality of labeling polypropylene products with the \u201cchasing arrows\u201d recycling symbol, as some recycling organizations had previously recommended. TRP said there was an immediate need for action to \u201censure the long-term viability of polypropylene plastic<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Working in tandem with other recycling groups including GreenBlue\u2014whose board of directors<\/a> includes executives from Walmart, Dow, and the packaging companies Printpack and Smurfit Westrock\u2014TRP launched a \u201cPolypropylene Recycling Coalition<\/a>\u201d that would work to increase the number of curbside collection programs accepting polypropylene. TRP started by giving grants to material recovery facilities, the factories where your household recycling is sent to be sorted, so they could install better technology capable of picking out polypropylene from mixed piles of plastic. The organization also said it would pursue \u201ceducation of residents<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n One of TRP\u2019s key goals was to reach the 60% access rate it now claims to have achieved for polypropylene cups. Hitting that threshold allows the cups to carry the chasing arrows and the words \u201cwidely recyclable,\u201d as shown on a label sold by GreenBlue\u2019s subsidiary, How2Recycle. But state and federal regulators don\u2019t actually vet these labels<\/a>. Instead, How2Recycle sells them to hundreds of companies<\/a> across the U.S., from Procter and Gamble to Lowe\u2019s, via annual use fees of up to $6,780, depending on their revenue.<\/p>\n From the start, TRP and its partners have faced scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest and for opaque, unilateral determinations about the state of recycling systems. For the polypropylene cup announcement specifically, Malak Anshassi, an assistant professor in environmental engineering at Florida Polytechnic University, said she wasn\u2019t sure where the 60% access rate came from. Nor would she have \u201cfull confidence\u201d in it, since recycling programs \u201cvary completely in terms of what is accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n Jan Dell, an independent chemical engineer and founder of the nonprofit The Last Beach Cleanup, conducted an analysis for Greenpeace last year and found that only 6% of the U.S. population has access to a municipal recycling program that accepts plastic cups. She said TRP\u2019s numbers relied on an AI analysis of whether city websites listed cups as accepted materials. \u201cThey say through their magic AI tool, \u2018Oh, yeah, 78% acceptance.\u2019 And they have no data that they can give you.\u201d<\/p>\n GreenBlue did not respond to multiple requests for comment, or to a detailed list of questions from Grist. TRP sent a statement from its press release saying that \u201caccess alone is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnly 20% of [polypropylene] packaging is currently captured, and 76% of all recyclables are still lost at the household level,\u201d said Kate Davenport, the organization\u2019s chief impact officer. She said TRP is focused on increasing polypropylene recycling through \u201cclear communication, stronger engagement, and continued investment in communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Critics argue that TRP, GreenBlue, and their partners intentionally blur the line between a cup\u2019s recycling access rate and its actual recycling rate. The touted 60% access rate only measures how many people are allowed to toss plastic cups into their curbside bins. It guarantees nothing about the cups\u2019 final destination. Because there are virtually no buyers for this low-value plastic, waste haulers could simply collect the cups to hit the 60% threshold, only to route them straight to landfills and incinerators.<\/p>\n Ending up in landfills and incinerators is the kind of thing that is liable to happen if plastics don\u2019t have robust \u201cend markets\u201d\u2014buyers who will pay what it takes to collect, sort, transport, and reprocess polypropylene. TRP and GreenBlue say they take end markets into account when judging a product\u2019s recyclability, but they didn\u2019t publish information about how they did this for polypropylene cups, other than to say that WM \u201chelped develop\u201d them.<\/p>\n WM said in a November press release<\/a> that, thanks to a $1.4 billion investment in new recycling infrastructure, cups had become \u201cvaluable recyclable materials that are baled at WM\u2019s recycling facilities along with other commodities, then sold to end markets that remanufacture products out of the recycled materials.\u201d The company encouraged cities to update their accepted materials lists, but it\u2019s unclear if it provided further justification. In at least one case\u2014in Salt Lake City\u2014communications obtained by Grist show that WM did not give city staff advance notice of the change, nor did the company directly respond when the city asked asked if it could be \u201c100% clear\u201d that plastic cups sent to the local MRF would ultimately be recycled. WM did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n The manager of the California recycling center said they were only familiar with \u201cone place\u201d accepting polypropylene to be reprocessed on an industrial scale: KW Plastics in Alabama, which is too far away to send California\u2019s plastic to. A 2025 analysis<\/a> from Greenpeace suggests that all of the U.S.\u2019s recycling facilities combined only have the capacity to reprocess 2% of the country\u2019s discarded polypropylene tubs and containers, or about 5% of its polypropylene cups.<\/p>\n In Oregon, polypropylene cups are still not accepted in curbside recycling programs as a matter of law. That\u2019s because of the state\u2019s Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act<\/a>, which established a uniform list of recyclable items for all of Oregon. The state\u2019s Department of Environmental Quality explicitly chose to exclude single-use polypropylene cups from its list for 2025 to 2027<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a preliminary study for polypro cups, and \u2026 the market for those cups was not \u2018responsible,\u2019\u201d said Peter Chism-Winfield, sustainable materials and waste policy manager for the city of Portland. \u201cThere are certain materials like low-grade plastics, which polypropylene cups fall into, that are the ones most susceptible to bad practices,\u201d he added. The third-party organization helping implement Oregon\u2019s recycling law said it would conduct research to see if polypropylene cups could one day be added to the uniform list.<\/p>\n Chism-Winfield said he expects similar laws in Washington<\/a> and California<\/a> will eventually lead those states to stop accepting polypropylene cups. \u201cIf you go down the trail of where those materials are going, and the environmental and social impacts that those are having, it\u2019s not going to be a pretty story for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Maryland<\/a> and Minnesota<\/a> are also in the process of evaluating which products meet criteria for responsible end markets. Colorado listed polypropylene cups as recyclable in a plan for 2026 to 2030<\/a>, though the needs assessment<\/a> on which the plan was based found there were no in-state end markets for post-consumer plastics of any type. It identified KW Plastics as the only potential processor for Colorado\u2019s polypropylene waste, provided that it is baled separately from other plastics and that these bales have a contamination rate less than 2%.<\/p>\n Davenport, from TRP, said in February\u2019s press release that recyclability labels are an important \u201cfirst step\u201d toward increasing polypropylene cups\u2019 recycling rates. Without them, people would keep throwing their cups in the trash. This is consistent with the way other industry groups<\/a> talk about labels, as a way to provide recyclers with more material to turn into new products.<\/p>\n Recyclability labels \u201ceducate and activate everyday people, and get waste into the right streams, and improve the recycling rate,\u201d How2Recycle wrote in a 2024 press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n But that approach\u2014using recycling labels before there\u2019s evidence of actual recycling\u2014might run afoul of state and local consumer protection laws.<\/p>\n In California, the state\u2019s recycling agency determined last December<\/a> that polypropylene cups are technically \u201crecyclable,\u201d but only in order to force plastic producers to try to increase their recycling rate from 2% to 65% by 2032. While companies try to meet that threshold, a separate law<\/a> will prevent them from labeling polypropylene cups with the chasing arrows symbol; the law requires evidence that labeled products are sorted for recycling 60% of the time.<\/p>\n Howie Hirsch, a retired lawyer who\u2019s been involved in recycling-related consumer protection litigation, said companies may be opening themselves up to lawsuits if they use the \u201cwidely recyclable\u201d label on polypropylene cups in California. \u201cI would certainly argue it is deceptive and misleading to label something as \u2018widely recyclable\u2019 when we know that the vast majority of any of those plastic materials that are placed in a recycling bin are going to end up in a landfill,\u201d Hirsch said.<\/p>\n The same may be true of other states with their own truth-in-advertising laws. Attorneys general could argue that the use of the recycling symbol contravenes guidance from the Federal Trade Commission, a watchdog agency tasked with protecting consumers from fraud and deception. The FTC\u2019s \u201cGreen Guides\u201d for environmental marketing claims say it\u2019s misleading to label something as recyclable unless 60% of consumers have access to a recycling program that will actually recycle it<\/a>, not accept it and then throw it away.<\/p>\n Starbucks declined to say whether it would use How2Recycle\u2019s labels for to-go cups in its California stores, or respond to additional questions. A spokesperson said its polypropylene cup initiative is part of a \u201cbroader packaging strategy\u201d that includes \u201creducing single-use materials where we can, promoting reuse, and improving recyclability across our footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n Starbucks has publicly committed<\/a> to make all of its packaging reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2030. Last year, it replaced polypropylene to-go cups<\/a> with paper versions at about 580 of its stores nationwide<\/a>, potentially in response to local ordinances restricting the use of single-use plastics, as well as a CBS investigation<\/a> showing that polypropylene cups placed in the company\u2019s in-store recycling bins were usually taken to incinerators, landfills, and waste transfer stations. But the company\u2019s endorsement of the \u201cwidely recyclable\u201d label suggests it isn\u2019t planning on a broader phaseout.<\/p>\n \u201cStarbucks wants consumers to think that the cups are recyclable so that consumers will buy lots of them and feel good about themselves,\u201d said Dell, with The Last Beach Cleanup.<\/p>\n This article originally appeared in Grist<\/a> at https:\/\/grist.org\/regulation\/why-your-widely-recyclable-starbucks-cup-is-still-headed-for-the-landfill\/<\/a>.\u00a0Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frappuccino lovers, rejoice: Your plastic to-go cups are now \u201cwidely recyclable.\u201d That\u2019s according to an announcement made in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,3354,640,147,24918],"class_list":{"0":"post-360681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-recycling","13":"tag-regulation","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-starbucks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}