California sues ExxonMobil for alleged decades of deception around plastic recycling, in first-of-its-kind lawsuit

(CNN) — California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil on Monday alleging the company carried out a “decades-long campaign of deception” in which the oil and gas giant misled the public on the merits of plastic recycling.

The complaint accuses the company of using slick marketing and misleading public statements for half a century to claim recycling was an effective way to deal with plastic pollution, according to a press release from Bonta’s office published Monday. It alleges the company continues to perpetuate the “myth” of recycling today.

The case, filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court, seeks to compel ExxonMobil “to end its deceptive practices that threaten the environment and the public,” the statement said.

Bonta is also asking the court to rule ExxonMobil must pay civil penalties, among other payments, for the harm inflicted by plastic pollution in California.

“Plastics are everywhere, from the deepest parts of our oceans, the highest peaks on earth, and even in our bodies, causing irreversible damage — in ways known and unknown— to our environment and potentially our health,” Bonta said.

“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. ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health,” he said.

In response to the lawsuit, ExxonMobil pointed the finger back at California, which it said has an ineffective recycling system that officials have known about 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.”

The suit caps a more-than-two-year Department of Justice investigation into the role of fossil fuel and petrochemical companies in the global plastics waste crisis.

The probe uncovered never-before-seen documents, according to Monday’s statement.

ExxonMobil is the world’s second-biggest oil and gas company in terms of market value, but is also the world’s largest producer of polymers — materials made from fossil fuels that are used as the building blocks of single-use plastics, including plastic utensils, drink bottles and packaging.

Lawsuits against oil and gas companies for their role in climate change and air pollution are becoming more common, but Monday’s is the first in the country to take on a fossil fuel company for its messaging around plastic recycling.

The statement said that ExxonMobil “falsely promoted all plastic as recyclable, when in fact the vast majority of plastic products are not and likely cannot be recycled, either technically or economically.”

The lawsuit also alleges Exxon “continues to deceive the public by touting “advanced recycling” as the solution to the plastic waste and pollution crisis.” Advanced — or chemical — recycling is a technology promoted by many oil companies, but which has been plagued by missed targets, closed or shelved plants and reports of fires and spills.

ExxonMobil contends chemical recycling does work. “We’re bringing real solutions, recycling plastic waste that couldn’t be recycled by traditional methods,” the company said in a statement.

At the heart of the suit is the allegation ExxonMobil’s messaging caused consumers to buy and use more single-use plastic than they otherwise would have.

When plastic is discarded, its most likely fate is a landfill, incineration or simply being dumped into the environment. Recent reports have shown only around 9% of the world’s plastic is recycled, a figure that’s even lower in the US, around 5% to 6%.

Recycling has not kept pace with plastic production, which has doubled over the past 20 years.

Plastic also fuels the climate crisis; the vast majority is produced using planet-heating fossil fuels and it’s a huge driver of global oil demand.

Judith Enck, a former Environmental Protection Agency official and now president of Beyond Plastics, a project based at Bennington College in Vermont, welcomed the development as “the single most consequential lawsuit filed against the plastics industry for its persistent and continued lying about plastics recycling.”

“The plastics industry has known for decades that — unlike paper and glass and metal — plastics are not designed to be recycled and therefore do not achieve a high recycling rate. Yet, the industry made every effort to convince the public otherwise while profiting off the planetary crisis it created.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Laura Paddison contributed to this report.

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