Last Updated on 04/09/2024 by Arun jain
A Houston-area climate activist discovered through a clever use of Apple AirTags that his city’s recycling program wasn’t living up to its promises.
Brandi Deason was skeptical when she heard that “all plastic” — even plastic not generally considered recyclable — would be “accepted.” Recycling program Sponsored by the City of Houston.
‘We need a huge supply of plastic to get ready for a startup here, and we want to start that now to get it going.’
An avid recycler and a Climate Justice Coordinator At Air Alliance Houston, Deason suspected that her plastic recyclables weren’t reaching the recycling facility and devised a strategy to test her suspicions. She dropped the Apple Airtag into a dozen different loads of plastic recyclables, leading the way CBS News Reporter Ben Tracy jokingly refers to him as a “plastic spy”.
Lo and behold, nine of the 12 airtags, a full 75%, wound up at Wright Waste Management, a waste-processing facility located about 20 miles from downtown Houston. Newsweek.
In 2022, Houston officials touted a new, advanced program from Cyclyx International that would convert nearly all plastic into pellets that could then be recycled. Accordingly LinkedIn profile Supposedly associated with it, Cyclyx is “a consortium of companies with a mission to help increase plastic recycling rates from 10% to 90%.”
In two years, Cyclyx and other companies involved in the Houston program have collected about 250 tons of plastic for recycling. Unfortunately, almost none of that plastic is recycled yet — and most Houstonians probably aren’t the wiser.
“I think they get the idea that it’s being taken care of and that it’s being recycled,” Deason told CBS News about his fellow Houston residents.
In fact, much of what is believed to be recyclable plastic is stacked in piles about 10 feet high at Wright, CBS News aerial drone footage shows, awaiting a sorting facility that has yet to be completed.
Ryan Tebbetts, vice president of Cyclix International, acknowledged to CBS News that the revolutionary plastic recycling program has never been tried but emphasized that most of the material at the waste facility will eventually be recycled.
“We need a large supply of plastic to get ready for startup here, and we want to start that now to get it going,” Tebbetts explained.
ExxonMobil, which helps fund Cyclyx, similarly emphasized that “advanced recycling” is not a pipe dream but a present-day reality. “Advanced recycling is real. It’s happening. We’re doing it,” said Ray Mastrolio, Exxon’s global market development manager for advanced recycling.
Mark Wilfalk, director of solid waste management in Houston, was less enthusiastic about the current state of the plastic recycling program. After seeing drone footage of the Wright facility, Wilfak admitted that “it’s not the most desirable looking site.”
Still, Wilfalk believes Wright is the right place for plastics — for now. “We’ll store it for now. We’ll see what happens,” he told Newsweek.
“This is not an ‘it’s our fault’ issue,” Deason told Newsweek. “This is an issue of overproduction of things that are not recyclable in the plastics industry.”
Meanwhile, California Attorney General Rob Bonta is investigating ExxonMobil and Cyclix’s claims about plastic recycling and has openly suggested that some of the promises are largely illusory, AppleInsider points out.
Exxon’s Mastrolio apparently disagrees, telling CBS News that “this is just the starting point, and we’re in it for the long haul.”
Blaze News reached out to Deason for comment but did not receive a response. Newsweek also reached out to Wright Waste Management and Houston’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability for comment.
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