Why Starbucks’ cups are so hard to recycle

A recent investigation by the US-based advocacy group Beyond Plastics found that none of the Starbucks cold cups that the global coffee giant claims are “widely recyclable” are actually being recycled.

Beyond Plastics put Bluetooth-enabled trackers on cups in recycling bins at Starbucks stores across nine US states and Washington, DC. Signals from 36 trackers over 3 months showed that none ended up in an actual recycling facility; most ended up in landfills or incinerators.

The investigation, which has generated broad media and public attention, builds on past efforts by watchdog groups and media organizations such as CBS that have uncovered a similar reality.

These initiatives target certain companies, but the problem isn’t limited to a specific consumer product or retailer. What the findings highlight is the extent to which the global plastics recycling system is broken, and how greenwashing by corporations hides the problem and misleads customers.

“We support recycling . . . but plastics recycling has been an abysmal failure,” said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, at a May 20 press conference. “You can’t suggest to customers that if they do everything right and perhaps rinse the cups, put [them] in recycling bins, that [they] will get recycled.”

The problem with polypropylene

The single-use clear plastic cups that Starbucks uses for its cold drinks are made of polypropylene. It is one of the most common plastics, used widely for food packaging—think yogurt cups and microwave-safe meal trays—and is labeled with the number 5 resin identification code.

But just because a resin type is designated as recyclable doesn’t mean it gets recycled. Only 20% of PP used in consumer products in the US is captured via household recycling, according to the Recycling Partnership, a US-based nonprofit.

Stats for actual recycling are much lower. The US produces almost 1 million metric tons of PP waste each year but recycles only about 8% of it, according to the latest report (PDF) by the Polypropylene Recycling Coalition founded by the Recycling Partnership.

That’s partly because PP products are often contaminated with food and are difficult to sort from other plastics. Plus PP is expensive to process, so most recyclers don’t see the value in recycling it.

“Polyolefins in general and polypropylene in particular are some of the hardest polymers to break down, due to their strong carbon-carbon backbone,” says Dionisios G. Vlachos, a chemical engineer at the University of Delaware. “It takes energy, catalysts, reactors, and separations to break them down, and this makes their recycling cost high.”

The US also simply doesn’t have enough PP recycling facilities, as Beyond Plastics highlights in their report. A December 2025 Greenpeace report (PDF) identified two commercial facilities in the US that can recycle postconsumer PP. “It’s estimated that these two facilities have the capacity to process approximately 2% of all of the polypropylene in the country,” said Susan Keefe, Beyond Plastics’ Southern California director, who led the investigation. Keefe and colleagues identified three more US facilities that have PP recycling capability, for a total of five.

Is chemical recycling the answer?

Researchers and start-ups are pursuing new chemical recycling technologies to tackle PP.

Polypropylene’s branching structure makes it especially difficult for catalysts to diffuse through the materials for chemical recycling, Vlachos says. But his group and others have developed catalysts to turn waste PP into valuable chemicals. Start-up PureCycle Technologies, meanwhile, is commercializing a solvent-based process to recycle PP into resins that can be used to make packaging.

Environmental groups including Beyond Plastics look down on chemical recycling because it requires a lot of heat or chemicals, generates waste, and in some cases turns the plastic into fuel. “It has failed for decades, and it doesn’t deliver results because it’s expensive, inefficient, and a polluting distraction,” Enck said.

Marco J. Castaldi, a chemical engineer at the City University of New York, says chemical recycling deserves credit—and some clarification. It’s incorrect to say that chemical recycling turns plastic into fuels, he says. “Plastics treated thermally are positioned to return the plastic material back to olefins that can be remade into plastics. Similar to any process, it is not 100% selective, so there is a portion of gases and liquids that get used as fuels, offsetting the use of virgin fuels to drive the process.”

Chemical recycling technologies are new, and it would take a decade or so to take them from a university laboratory to industrial scale. Yet Vlachos says it’s possible with investment and persistence, as well as societal and political push. “We have developed good scientific solutions toward industrial-scale recycling. But science is not enough. We need a vision and persistence and figure out the economics. We are not far off.”

Even with viable technology, much boils down to consumer will, Castaldi says. Retailers are in the business of selling stuff, and they can encourage and educate. “The waste handlers are doing their level best, but when there is no market pull, it becomes a purely economic decision,” he says. “Consumers say they want recycled products, but the market research and actual behavior show that the consumer will not pay a premium for recycled material.”

Recycling challenges: Starbucks and beyond

In Beyond Plastics’ investigation, of the 36 trackers that remained intact and provided data via an app, 16 ended up at landfills; 9 at incinerator facilities; 8 made it to waste transfer stations, likely on their way to landfill or incinerator; and 3 wound up at materials recovery facilities (MRFs), where items are sorted into bales for recyclers to purchase.

Not only did none of the tracked cups make it to recycling facilities “some cups traveled a very long way just to reach landfill or be burned,” Keefe said. Four cups each traveled over 450 miles from New York City to a landfill in Amsterdam, Ohio.

Starbucks takes issue with the methodology, stating that the trackers are nonrecyclable and could interfere with how materials are handled or where they are routed. Keefe counters that might not matter if the tracker-bearing cup isn’t even making it to a sorting facility but ending up in a landfill or incinerator.

Starbucks spokesperson Victoria Lewis told C&EN that Starbucks’ cold cups are designed to be recyclable but that “recycling in practice also requires local community infrastructure. That’s why we work closely with others, including the recycling companies, to help expand access and help improve the system.”

But environmental advocates say the disparity between labeling and truth is the real problem. A huge gap between recycling access and actual recycling rates persists, according to Grist.

In February, the How2Recycle program granted polypropylene cups the “widely recyclable” designation, meaning more than 60% of US households can recycle PP cups through curbside or drop-off programs. The How2Recycle designation was a result of efforts by NexGen Consortium managed by Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy, the Recycling Partnership, Starbucks, and WM.

Given the country’s low actual recycling rate for PP and the existence of five PP recycling facilities, this labeling is deceptive and confuses the public, according to Beyond Plastics. And it gives big retailers like Starbucks the OK to keep using single-use plastic.

Retailers bear responsibility, says Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president at US shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. To its credit, Starbucks has reduced the amount of plastic used in its cold cups. And, MacKerron says, the company “told me they went with number 5 plastic because of studies showing that it has a lower carbon footprint to produce than number 1 or 2 plastics.”

But Starbucks needs to do more, he says. “It’s time for the company to start prioritizing reusable alternatives for customers and not make claims about recycling if they can’t demonstrate that cups are actually recycled.”

Beyond Plastics also recommends those two steps. In addition, the group asks that Starbucks switch to fiber-based to-go cups and lids in all stores. The added cost of such cups would be loose change when compared with the average $3–$8 cost of a Starbucks cold beverage.

The group hopes that urging the world’s largest coffee chain to take accountability will inspire other consumer goods companies and maybe even municipalities to do the same.

“This [would] be one of the most comprehensive shifts away from plastic pollution that any major company has made in the world,” said Enck, the Beyond Plastics president. “When a company tells you something is being recycled, and it isn’t, it doesn’t just mislead the customer, it also takes the pressure off for real solutions, which is using less plastic in the first place.”