Starbucks does not recycle plastic cups it claims are ‘widely recyclable’, report says

If you attach a GPS tracker to a “widely recyclable” plastic Starbucks cup and drop it in an in-store recycling bin, you might expect it to end up in a recycling plant, but environmental watchdog organization Beyond Plastics says that’s not the case in a new report. Starbucks announced that their plastic cups were now considered “widely recyclable” earlier this year, according to How2Recycle, a group affiliated with the consumer packaging industry that helps private companies label their packaging with recycling options. The coffee giant touted the achievement as a “big milestone, with huge impact”. In response, researchers and volunteers with Beyond Plastics , whose mission is to “end plastic pollution everywhere”, conducted an investigation between January and March 2026 to determine whether the plastic Starbucks to-go cups for cold drinks were actually being recycled. “I used Bluetooth-enabled trackers,” said study lead Susan Keefe. “And I glued them into the cups using Gorilla Glue and dropped them into the actual custom-labeled recycling bins in the Starbucks stores. And then you can follow them on your phone.” Keefe and a group of volunteers tracked 53 polypropylene plastic cups starting in recycling bins at Starbucks locations across nine states and Washington DC. Each recycling bin had signs clearly indicating these specific cups could be recycled. The results were stunning: not one cup ended up at a recycling facility. …