LA County Sues 'Plastic Polluters' PepsiCo and Coca-Cola

Los Angeles County filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo and Coca-Cola in Los Angeles Superior Court on Oct. 30, claiming that they have misrepresented the recyclability of their plastic bottles to consumers. The suit also accuses the companies of failing to disclose the “significant environmental and health harms associated with the use of plastic beverage containers.”

“Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have misrepresented the environmental impact of plastic beverage containers, claiming that they are “recyclable” despite knowing that plastics cannot be readily disposed of without associated environmental impacts,” reads the press release announcing the lawsuit. Current recycling methods are incapable of eliminating the environmental impacts, it alleges, adding that most plastic containers end up at landfills or as litter. Additionally, the “production, disposal, and recycling of plastic all create greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts that negatively impact county residents.”

A question of recycling infrastructure

Inadequate recycling infrastructure at or near the point of consumption, even if the plastic bottles are, in fact, recyclable, has become a rallying cry among environmentalists, as John Spevacek noted in a recent article in PlasticsToday. Environmentalists are challenging the definition of recyclable, he writes in “Environmentalists Want to Change the Meaning of the Word ‘Recyclable,’” by requiring that infrastructure for recycling be in place for a substantial majority of the population in order for a product to be labeled recyclable.

The lawsuit goes on to say that plastic does not biodegrade and, instead, breaks down into smaller and smaller microplastics that contaminate the “county’s natural resources, harming the environment and wildlife and threatening public health. Moreover, it accuses PepsiCo and Coca-Cola of deceptively claiming that recycling their plastic bottles contributes to a circular economy: “In reality, plastic bottles can only be recycled once, if at all, making promises of a ‘circular economy’ impossible,” said the county.

Beverage association responds

The American Beverage Association understandably is pushing back. Its vice president of media and public affairs, William Dermody, told the Los Angeles Times in response to the lawsuit that “California has one of the highest bottle recycling rates in the country — 71% in 2023. Our bottles are designed to be recycled and remade and can include up to 100% recycled plastic.”

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, and their various brands, reportedly account for roughly 72.8% of the carbonated soft drink market in the United States, writes the Times. A recent study, based on data provided by Break Free From Plastics, called Coca-Cola one of the “world’s biggest known plastic polluters.” That report was debunked by Spevacek, who called out the study’s “maddeningly stupid” methodology in his column.

The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief to stop the alleged deceptive business practices, restitution for consumers of the money acquired by means of the companies’ unfair and deceptive business practices, and civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.

California declares war on plastics

The LA County lawsuit is but the latest salvo in California’s ongoing war against plastics by going after deep-pocketed corporations. In September of this year, the attorney general of the state filed a suit against ExxonMobil for what he called “a decades-long campaign of deception that caused and exacerbated the global plastics pollution crisis.”