California Attorney General Rob Bonta (Democrat) filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil on Monday, alleging that the company engaged in a decades-long campaign to mislead the public about the recyclability of plastics.
Representing the California Department of Justice, Bonta charged that the company has misled Californians for half a century with false public statements and marketing tools that positioned recycling as the solution to the company's burgeoning plastic waste problem.
ThroughLitigationIn the lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, the attorneys general seek to force ExxonMobil to stop its allegedly wrongful conduct and secure remediation funds and civil penalties for the harm it has caused to communities.
“Plastic is everywhere, from the deepest parts of the oceans to the highest peaks of the Earth and even inside our bodies, causing unknown and possibly irreparable damage to our environment and our health,” Bonta said.statement.
“For decades, ExxonMobil has misled the public into believing that recycling plastics would solve our plastic waste and pollution crisis, but this is clearly not the case,” the Attorney General continued.
The lawsuit describes ExxonMobil as “the largest producer of plastic polymers used to make single-use plastics,” adding that the company has “increased plastic production and misleadingly promoted recycling as a cure-all for plastic waste.”
The lawsuit further alleges that the company “actively promoted the development of fossil fuel-based plastic products and waged a campaign to minimize public understanding of the harmful effects of these products.”
The lawsuit argues that today's recycling capacity is inadequate to deal with the amount of plastic being generated, and accuses the companies of being “fully aware” that these solutions were inadequate.
“ExxonMobil lied to increase its record-breaking profits at the expense of the planet and possibly at the risk of our health,” Bonta said.
“Today's lawsuit presents the most complete picture yet of ExxonMobil's decades-long deceptive conduct, and we ask the Court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastic pollution crisis through its deceptive activities,” the attorneys general added.
In a separate plastic-related move, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Sunday signed a bill that will ban grocery stores from providing plastic bags to customers starting in 2026.
As for Bonta's case, environmental groups praised the attorney general's decision to file the complaint against ExxonMobil.
“This is the most significant lawsuit ever filed against the plastics industry, which has persistently lied about plastic recycling,” Judith Enck, executive director of the non-profit organization Beyond Plastic, said in a statement.
“The plastics industry has known for decades that unlike paper, glass and metal, plastics are not designed to be recycled and therefore cannot achieve high recycling rates,” Enck continued, “yet the industry has made every effort to convince the public that they are OK, all while profiting from the planetary crisis they helped create.”
Julie Teal Simmons, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, agreed, describing petrochemical companies as “shameless polluters and profiteers.”
“Plastic pollution permeates every corner of the world and we all carry microplastics in our bodies,” Simmons added.
A spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents plastics manufacturers, said inquiries “are best directed to ExxonMobil” because the ACC is not named in the lawsuit.
“California officials have known for decades that their recycling system is ineffective. They have done nothing and now are trying to blame others,” an ExxonMobil spokesman said in a statement. “Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to solve the problem and keep plastic out of landfills. The first step is to acknowledge what their colleagues across the U.S. know: advanced recycling works. To date, we have processed more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into usable raw materials and kept it out of landfills. We are bringing a real solution to recycling plastic waste that couldn't be recycled through traditional methods.”
— Updated 3:54 p.m.
