A Texas woman curious about where recycled plastics actually end up decided to track her trash using Apple AirTags.
Brandy Deason, an environmentalist, tucked 12 devices in her recycling bin and watched them move throughout Houston.
While three were unaccounted for, nine of the trackers ended up 20 miles outside of the city at a waste management facility
Deason became suspicious when Houston launched a new program WHEN? that accepted certain plastics that are not typically considered recyclable, such as Styrofoam.
City officials admitted that more than 250 tons of plastic have been collected since the end of 2022, but none has yet to be actually recycled.
Brandy Deason, an environmentalist, became skeptical about Houston’s all-plastic recycling program and decided to investigate where her plastic was going. She dropped 12 AirTags into her plastics and watched them travel through the city
Houston rolled out the program in December 2022, with with ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell, and Cyclyx International, allowing residents to discard all types of plastics in recycling bins.
Deason took advantage of the new effort, tucking AirTags inside plastic film wrap, shopping bags, shampoo bottles and other plastics that are usually prohibited by recycling facilities in the US.
‘We want to know what was happening with this stuff,’ Deason told Inside Climate News. ‘Is it really going to go to get recycled?’
She watched the AirTags move using her smartphone, finding more than half landed at Wright Waste Management that is poised to as the ‘new frontier in recycling’ – but critics call the site ‘a sham.’
Deason teamed up with CBS News for her investigation and visited Wright Waste Management, which is listed as a cardboard recycler that applied in 2022 to operate as a plastic recycler for Houston’s program.
CBS sent a drone over the site capturing stacks of plastics more than 10 feet high.
Mark Wilfalk, Houston’s top solid waste official, said the city is aware of the issue, but noted that they plan to ‘stockpile it for now’ and ‘see what happens.’
Cyclyx promised Houston officials that it would open a sorting facility to store and treat plastics that can be turned into recyclable pellets, but construction at Wright Waste Management has yet to start.
Deason tucked the AirTags inside plastic that is typically not accepted in most recycling facilities across the US to see just how successful Houston’s program would be
Not only is the plastic piling up, but the Wright facility has failed three county fire safety inspections, according to documents obtained by CBS.
Wilfalk only said that he and his team would follow up with the fire safety inspection issues.
Ryan Tebbetts, a Cyclyx vice president, declined to discuss the Wright site’s failing fire marshal inspections or its regulatory status with Inside Climate News , referring questions back to Wright Waste Management.
‘Wright Waste Management doesn’t represent us, and they are currently a temporary solution before we can get [our] facility operational,’ Tebbetts said.
However, plastics baking in the hot Texas sun pose a major fire risk and there are neighborhoods just outside the site.
Nine of the AirTags ended up 20 miles outside of the city at a waste-handling business called Wright Waste Management. Drone footage shows piles of plastic more than 10 feet high are littering the site
‘Should that catch fire,’ Deason said ‘the emissions coming off of that could be really poisonous to the people that live around here, not to mention a dangerous, large fire like that could spread into a neighborhood.’
Houston rolled out the program in response to low recycling rates throughout the city, allowing residents to recycle even bubble wrap and bags that are typically prohibited in such efforts.
If plastics cannot be mechanically, they will be superheated and chemically processed into new plastic, fuels or other products.
Exxon and the petrochemical industry call this ‘advanced’ or ‘chemical’ recycling and heavily promote it as a solution to runaway plastic waste.
However, environmental advocates have long warned that this process releases highly toxic air pollution, contributes to global warming and should not qualify as recycling at all.
