[rileymat2]

My local Starbucks has 2 bins for recyclables and trash with little images about what to put in each bin. Many customers look at them, think, and put them in the right bin. Most just throw them in the middle trash bin.

At the end of the night, all three bins go into the same dumpster, they recycle nothing there.

[nitwit005]

Depends where you are. It says compostable or recyclable as the only options near me, but a google image search for "starbucks trash can" will show a lot of variation.

[themafia]

My gut feeling is this should be illegal. It's something like false advertising.

[legitster]

It should also be illegal when municipalities do it.

Just because the city offers a recycling pickup, doesn't mean most of it actually gets recycled.

[kube-system]

I'm a recycling critic, but no, it shouldn't -- because while the market for recycling feed fluctuates, consumer habits take decades to change. If we come up for an excellent recycling solution for plastics in the next 20 years, but we have to re-build municipal recycling programs from scratch, it'll be 80 years before it's going at full steam.

Also some material like aluminum are very valuable to recycle even if we're throwing plastic in the trash.

[rileymat2]

It is questionable, I assume they are using standard corporate products and our local rural-ish area does not have very good options.

[semiquaver]

Most recycling in retail contexts is pure theater either way, so why expend the effort to actually separate streams that will inevitable be combined later.