The funny thing about this investigation is that I don't think you could actually recycle plastic cups with air tags stuck to them anyway. Plastic recycling is somewhat delicate & precise, so the electronics & non compatible plastics in air tags would probably foul things up.<p>I'm not convinced there's much benefit to trying to recycle single use plastic containers anyway. We should be reducing their use, but as long as they end up in landfills instead of waterways, it's not too bad - the carbon will remain sequestered there until either future generations reprocess it or the earth turns it into oil over millions of years. In theory you could recycle all types of plastic via pyrolysis (less so for PVC), but it's expensive & inefficient & you still end up losing material & likely releasing CO2. I did some reading on it a few months ago & came to the conclusion it's probably better to pyrolize organic material & just bury the waste plastic for now. (Pyrolysis of wood, organic waste, etc. can produce chemical feedstocks & fuels & still be carbon negative if it's run on solar/nuclear b/c of the bio char fraction).<p>The biggest harms around plastic pollution come from the fishing industry, mass dumping in 3rd world countries, & shady international "recyclers" who end up dumping the plastic or burning it in open air.