Houston resident Brandy Deason had some suspicions about the city's plastic recycling program. She actually wondered where this waste could end up. To see things more clearly, she usedAirTags. The rest is told to us by the American press.
AirTags as an investigation tool
The citizen added Apple trackers to recycled plastic bags that she sent to the recycling center. She then saw that they were being taken to a company called Wright Waste Management in the neighboring county.
Problem is, this company is not authorized to store plastic waste and it has even failed three fire inspections. While observing aerial photos taken by drones, Brandy Deason spots large piles of plastic waste three meters high, reportsCBS News.
She then decided to contact Houston's director of solid waste management, Mark Wilfalk. The latter recognizes that the city has collected 250 tonnes of plastic since the end of 2022 and that these have not been recycled.
The municipality is waiting for the opening of a sorting center for recycling managed by another company, but the latter has fallen behind schedule. In fact, California Attorney General Rob Bonta investigated the recycling claims made by the recycling company Cyclix and called them“largely fictitious”, specifiesApple Insider.
A precedent in Mexico
Regardless, this isn't the first time AirTags have been used to uncover a scandal. We thus rememberthe investigation of the Mexican journalistPamela Cerdeira who used Apple trackers to demonstrate that donations made in Mexico to help victims of the terrible earthquakes in Turkey are not reaching their recipients.
