> Beyond Plastics placed 53 Bluetooth-enabled trackers inside single-use polypropylene cold cups and dropped them into in-store recycling bins at 35 Starbucks locations across nine states and Washington, D.C. Of the 36 trackers that returned usable data, none pinged from a recycling facility.

This is an obvious methodology problem, no? Bluetooth-enabled trackers are not recyclable, so they ended up in the correct place.

These trackers probably had CR2032 batteries that could damage a shredder, would pollute the resulting pulp, and could easily be pulled out of the mixed recyclables stream by a magnet.

Whether or not the cup itself made it to a recycling facility is not something this experiment actually tested for. All they know is the tracker didn't make it. The system appears to be working as expected.