California Sues ExxonMobil for Plastics Recycling Deceptions

Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California, announced today that he is suing ExxonMobil for “engaging in a decades-long campaign of deception that caused and exacerbated the global plastics pollution crisis.” 

The lawsuit filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court alleges that ExxonMobil misled consumers through public statements and marketing campaigns for half a century by promising that “recycling would address the ever-increasing amount of plastic waste ExxonMobil produces,” said a press release on Bonta’s website. He estimates that the unspecified damages sought by the suit would amount to multiple billions of dollars, according to reporting by the New York Times.

Two-year investigation

The lawsuit is the culmination of a two-year investigation by the Department of Justice into ExxonMobil, which Bonta’s office characterizes as the world’s largest producer of polymers used to make single-use plastics. In the press release, Bonta cites a 12-page advertorial, “The Urgent Need to Recycle,” that the petrochemicals giant placed in a July 1989 edition of Time magazine and the adoption of the chasing arrows as examples of the company’s single-minded effort to promote recycling when, in fact, the vast majority of plastic products “cannot be recycled either for technical or economic reasons.”

Related:CA Gov Signs Plastic Bag Ban Into Law

Bonta also accuses ExxonMobil of “deceiving the public” on advanced recycling as a solution to the plastic waste and pollution crisis. He claims that the company hides “important truths” about its technical limitations, including that the vast majority of plastic waste processed via advanced recycling results in fuels rather than recycled plastics, and, in a best-case scenario, that it “will account for less than one percent of ExxonMobil’s total plastic production capacity.”

Decades-long campaign of deception

Bonta said in the press release that “the lawsuit alleges that ExxonMobil’s decades-long campaign of deception violated state nuisance, natural resources, water pollution, false advertisement, and unfair competition laws. The Attorney General is seeking nuisance abatement, disgorgement (which would require the defendants to give up the profits gained through their illegal conduct), and civil penalties; and injunctive relief to both protect California’s natural resources from further pollution, impairment, and destruction, as well as to prevent ExxonMobil from making any further false or misleading statements about plastics recycling and its plastics operations.”

Reporting on the lawsuit, the New York Times notes that more than two dozen states, including California, have sued companies for their role in the climate crisis in a quest for profit. None have gone to trial yet, notes the Times.