California Sues ExxonMobil Over ‘Decades-Long’ Deceiving Plastic Recyclability Campaign

“For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

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California is suing fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil over “decades” of deceiving campaigns that have allegedly contributed to exacerbate the plastic pollution crisis.

Filed by the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta in the San Francisco County Superior Court, the first-of-its-kind lawsuit seeks to hold the American multinational accountable for its active contribution to plastic pollution, one of the biggest environmental threats of our lifetime.

“For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” Bonta said in a statement issued on Monday.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) accuses ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, of deceiving Californians for five decades about the real environmental impact of its plastic products. Through “misleading public statements” and “slick marketing,” the company allegedly tricked consumers into thinking that all of its products are recyclable, despite knowing that this option is neither technically nor economically viable for “the vast majority” of its products.

The lawsuit singles out ExxonMobil as the world’s largest producer of polymers, which are used by other companies to manufacture single-use plastics, and argues that most plastic items collected in the state can be traced back to the company.

In 2021, a Plastic Waste Makers Index report estimated that the Exxon, China-owned Sinopec and US-based Dow – the world’s top-three largest polymer producer generating single-use plastic waste – accounted for about 16% of global single-use plastic waste.

In the statement, the DOJ accused the company of misleadingly making use of the chasing arrows, a symbol strongly associated with recycling, to promote its plastic products. “In reality, only about 5 percent of U.S. plastic waste is recycled, and the recycling rate has never exceeded 9 percent,” the statement read.

You might also like: Your Guide to Recycling Plastics

The lawsuits also explicitly addresses Exxon’s “advanced recycling” program, alleging that the company hides “important truths” about its technical limitations.

Advanced recycling is an umbrella term to describe a variety of technologies that can turns certain types of plastic polymer back into their original molecules so they can be processed and used over and over. On its website, Exxon describes it as a strategy to strengthen the circularity of its plastic products, though the lawsuit argues that plastics produced through this technology “contain so little plastic waste that they are effectively virgin plastics deceptively marketed as ‘circular’… and sold at a premium.”

“ExxonMobil’s ‘advanced recycling’ program is nothing more than a public relations stunt meant to encourage the public to keep purchasing single-use plastics that are fueling the plastics pollution crisis,” the DOJ said.

Global Crisis

Over 99% of plastic is derived from fossil fuels, including natural gas and crude oil, and contains chemicals that are known endocrine disruptors and threaten human health.

When plastic production started in the 1950s, only a small amount of plastics were produced, and resulting plastic waste was relatively manageable. Since then, waste has more than doubled – today, approximately 300 million tonnes of plastic waste are generated globally each year. About 60% of this waste ends up in our natural environment or landfills, while only around 9% is recycled.

Plastic is difficult to recycle because it can degrade in quality during the recycling process, limiting its ability to be repeatedly recycled. The different types of plastics often need to be sorted and processed separately, adding complexity and cost to recycling operations. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, by 2060, the global plastic recycling rate might be just 17%.

Plastic pollution is one of the biggest problems affecting the marine environment, with an estimated 11 million tons of plastic entering the ocean annually. Roughly 40% of the ocean’s surface is covered in plastic debris and if our plastic consumption continues, it is estimated that by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.

Plastic does not biodegrade. Instead, it degrades in quality and with time breaks down into smaller pieces – which we commonly refer to as microplastics – through processes such as weathering and exposure to wave action, wind abrasion, and ultraviolet radiation from sunlight. These fragments of plastic are smaller than 5mm and larger than 1 micron (1/1000th of a millimetre) in length, close in size to one sesame seed.

Microplastics has been found them pretty much everywhere – inside marine creatures and in mammal feces, in food and bottled water, and even in human blood. Because this is still a relatively new research field, scientists cannot yet fully estimate the long-lasting impact of these particles on animals and humans.

In February, an in-depth report by the Center for Climate Integrity revealed how the plastic industry and Big Oil – including Exxon – deceived the public for decades while contributing to the plastic waste crisis.

“Petrochemical companies – independently and through industry trade associations and front groups – have deceived consumers, policymakers, and regulators into believing that they could address the plastic waste crisis through a series of false solutions,” the report read.

More on the topic: The Plastic Diet: Has Plastic Pollution Reached its Tipping Point?

Climate Litigation

Courtrooms around the world have become a key battleground in the public debate over climate change and environmental damage, with climate litigation consolidating as a popular strategy in tackling the ongoing climate crisis.

At least 230 new cases were filed globally last year alone, according to a recent report by the Gratham Research Institute. 47 of them concerned “climate-washing,” meaning they challenged “inaccurate government or corporate narratives regarding contributions to the transition to a low-carbon future.” The report noted that more than 140 such cases have been filed to date worldwide, particularly in the last few years.

Targets of these cases include polluting companies such as airlines, major fossil fuel companies as well as financial institutions over misleading claims to sell their financial products and services.

Featured image: City of Greenville, North Carolina/Flickr.