Sunita Somvanshi
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, accusing the company of driving a “deceptive” decades-long recycling campaign that would have in practice increased the purchase and use of plastic products. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco, further states that the oil giant promoted that all types of plastic were recyclable, even though “ExxonMobil knew that mechanical recycling and so-called advanced recycling could never process more than a small fraction of the plastic waste it produces.”
The Prosecutor’s Office argues that citizens would be more likely to buy single-use plastics under this false promise of recycling. “The company proposes false solutions, manipulates the public, and lies to consumers,” said Prosecutor Rob Bonta at a press conference, alongside environmental organizations. “It’s time for ExxonMobil to be held accountable,” he added.
“Our coast, rivers, and bays are flooded with plastic pollution that costs California taxpayers more than $1 billion a year while just last year ExxonMobil made $36 billion in profits.” The company responded with a brief statement: “California authorities have known for decades that their recycling system is ineffective. They did not act and now they are trying to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to solve the problem and prevent plastic from ending up in landfills.”
The Prosecutor’s Office accuses the oil company of using strategies such as incorporating the three chasing arrows symbol into its products in the late 1980s, in an attempt to evade regulations. It also argues that the “advanced recycling” program that ExxonMobil promotes as a novel technology to reuse plastic waste “conceals facts about its technical limitations.”
ExxonMobil defined its program, in short stating that it had “to date” processed more than 30,000 tons of plastic waste into usable raw material. The company expanded its domestic production to 7.7 million tons of plastics per year in 2023, the lawsuit states.
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The lawsuit seeks to have “ExxonMobil fund, likely with billions of dollars, the reduction of the damages caused by its deceptions,” the prosecutor said. Environmental re-education, research into successful recycling methods, the cleanup of millions of tons of plastic waste in nature, and the restitution of profits are some of the actions requested in the lawsuit.
Since 1985, “more than 26 million pounds [11 million tons] of trash has been collected from California’s beaches and waterways, Among the objects collected on the state’s beaches during 2023 are cigarette butts, snack bags, bottles, cups, and plastic bags, utensils, balloons, polystyrene containers, among others.
In the United States, only 5% of plastics are recycled. The figure represented 95% of plastic never recycled . Attorney General Bonta claims that ExxonMobil granted Groups like the Council for Solid Waste Solutions or Plastics Progress, to push a deceptive message of the viability of recycling Chemical recycling that supposedly uses heat or corrosive substances to convert plastics into new materials.
Each year, around 400 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide. Fossil fuel companies are resisting putting an end to this business. Regardless, On March 2, 2022, these companies and oil-producing countries were pressured to prevent a global agreement to reduce plastic production.
Judith Enck, a former EPA official and now president of Beyond Plastics, welcomed the advancement as “the most consequential lawsuit filed against the plastic industry for its persistent and ongoing lies about plastic recycling.”
The lawsuit alleges basically that the campaign “has violated state laws on property damage, natural resources, water pollution, false advertising, and unfair competition.” It remains to be seen whether lawsuits like the one brought by the state of California are the path to curb plastic pollution.
