SAN FRANCISCO — California sued ExxonMobil Monday, alleging the oil giant deceived the public for half a century by promising that the plastics it produced would be recycled.
Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said that less than 5% of plastic is recycled into other plastic products in the U.S., even though the items are labeled “recyclable.” As a result, landfills and oceans are filled with plastic waste, creating a global pollution crisis. At the same time, consumers diligently place plastic water bottles and other containers into recycling bins, the lawsuit alleges.
“‘Buy as much as you want, no problem, it’ll be recycled,’ they say. Lies, and they aim to make us feel less guilty about our waste if we recycle it,” said Bonta, a Democrat, during a virtual news conference, where he was joined by representatives of environmental groups that filed a separate but similar lawsuit Monday, also in San Francisco County Superior Court.
“The end goal is to drive people to buy, buy, buy and drive ExxonMobil’s profits up, up, up, up,” he said.
ExxonMobil blamed California for its flawed recycling system. “California officials have known their recycling system isn’t ineffective for decades. They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills,” Lauren Kight, spokesperson for ExxonMobil, said in an email.
According to the Center for Climate Integrity, dozens of U.S. municipalities, eight states and Washington, D.C., have sued oil and gas companies in recent years over their role in climate change. Those lawsuits are still making their way through courts, including a lawsuit filed by California a year ago against some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, claiming they deceived the public about the risks of fossil fuels.
The lawsuit announced Monday stems from an investigation Bonta’s office launched in April 2022 into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries. The investigation included issuing subpoenas that revealed previously hidden documents, Bonta’s office said.
The complaint alleges violations of California’s nuisance and unfair competition laws and that ExxonMobil concealed the harms caused by plastics.
It was filed a day after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a statewide ban on all supermarket plastic shopping bags.
Notre Dame Law School professor Bruce Huber, who specializes in environmental, natural resources and energy law, said the state faces an uphill battle in its suit against ExxonMobil despite evidence that plastic manufacturers “have not been forthright” about the challenges of turning old plastics into new items.
“The state’s primary claim relies on public nuisance, a notoriously murky area of law. It could be difficult for a court to grant California relief here without opening a Pandora’s box of other, similar claims,” he said by email.
According to the state’s lawsuit, ExxonMobil knew that plastic is “extremely costly and difficult to eradicate” and that it disintegrates into harmful microplastics, yet it promoted recycling as a key solution through news and social media platforms.
At the same time, it ramped up production of plastics, the lawsuit states.
ExxonMobil has been promoting “advanced recycling” or “chemical recycling,” saying the process will better turn old plastics into new products; the lawsuit states that only 8% of materials do so.
Bonta said the lawsuit’s contents will stun many who have purchased products made from recycled materials and who have placed plastic products in blue recycling bins.
“This is a revelation to many, after years and years of a belief that is untrue because they were lied to by ExxonMobil … about the myth of recycling,” he said.
