Environmental and labor activists rallied outside Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol's Newport Beach office on Thursday, Oct. 1. They brought a 14,000-signature petition and a tracker investigation that found none of the company's plastic cups reached a recycling facility.

Organizers from Beyond Plastics, the Story of Stuff Project and the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) held a news conference at 660 Newport Center Drive, where Niccol's office occupies the 13th floor. Barricades blocked the group from entering the building to deliver the petition.

The rally centered on a Beyond Plastics investigation. The New York Post first reported the findings on Sept. 28. Investigators placed 69 Bluetooth-enabled trackers inside Starbucks in-store recycling bins across 21 states. Of the 47 trackers that returned data, 23 ended up in landfills, 11 at incinerators and 10 at waste-transfer stations. Three reached material recovery facilities, which sort plastics. None was confirmed recycled.

"I don't know any chain that goes to the extent of Starbucks to promote its plastics as recyclable," said Susan Keefe, Southern California director of Beyond Plastics and the rally's organizer, as reported by the Daily Pilot.

The findings clash with a February 2026 announcement in which Starbucks and WM, formerly Waste Management, declared the company's cold-beverage cups "widely recyclable." Starbucks said at the time that more than 60% of U.S. households could recycle the cups curbside. Keefe said the polypropylene No. 5 plastic used in those cups is expensive to recycle, and that U.S. facilities have roughly 2% capacity to handle it.

A Starbucks spokesperson disputed the investigation's methodology in a statement to the New York Post on Sept. 28. The spokesperson said tracker devices are not accepted in recycling streams and can introduce contamination that changes where cups are routed. The company said its cups carry a "widely accepted for recycling" designation from How2Recycle. Starbucks did not respond to the Daily Pilot's requests for comment on the day of the rally.

Speakers also targeted Starbucks' "Better Cups for All" reuse policy. The policy calls for dine-in customers to receive drinks in ceramic cups. A Story of Stuff Project survey found that 77% of the time, in-store customers still received disposable cups. Alex Choy, campaign advocacy manager for the Story of Stuff Project, said the company needs to support its stores and baristas to make the reuse policy "fact instead of fiction."

Jeremiah Pettus, a barista at the Downtown Disney Starbucks location and a member of Starbucks Workers United, brought a labor voice to the demonstration. "Instead of tossing everything into the garbage bin, Starbucks can afford to make changes," Pettus said.