The state of California filed a lawsuit Monday against oil giant ExxonMobil for its role in creating millions of tons of plastic that pollute the land, water, and human bodies—all while promoting the idea that most consumer plastics are recyclable, something that’s simply not true.
A statement from California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Sunday alleged that ExxonMobil has been “deceiving Californians for half a century” by using “misleading public statements and slick marketing” that promised recycling would be able to address the enormous amount of plastic waste in the world produced by ExxonMobil’s polymers.
It’s only in the past decade that the public learned much of the plastic placed in recycling bins around the world never actually gets recycled. Sometimes the plastic is shipped overseas to places like Southeast Asia, while other times it’s just sent to a landfill. China, which used to be one of the world’s most popular dumping grounds for plastic waste, stopped taking imports of the plastic for “recycling” back in 2018. Only about 5% of plastic waste in the U.S. actually gets recycled, according to the latest studies.
The new lawsuit was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court on Monday by the Attorney General, who’s taken aim in recent years at the single-use plastics that are virtually impossible to recycle. Single-use plastics include plastic packaging, plastic bags, plastic straws, and disposable utensils, among a host of others. Bonta first launched an investigation in 2022 into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries and their role in creating the plastics crisis.
“Through its deception, ExxonMobil has caused or substantially contributed to plastic pollution that has harmed and continues to harm California’s environment, wildlife, and natural resources,” Bonta said in a press release.
While the public has largely been in the dark about the fact that most plastics aren’t actually recyclable, California’s lawsuit points to a long history of ExxonMobil allegedly pushing false claims that made it seem like plastics were getting recycled. For example, Bonta calls out a 1989 ad from an ExxonMobil-linked trade group in Time magazine that claimed plastics would be recycled.
The damages being sought by California aren’t specified in the suit, which has been posted in its entirety online, though it does ask the court to force ExxonMobil to “give up the profits gained through their illegal conduct,” and pay unspecified civil penalties.
California reports that more than 26 million pounds of trash have been collected from the state’s beaches and waterways since 1985, with over 80% of that trash being plastic. But it’s not just the natural environment that’s been inundated with plastic in the past 50 years. Scientists are increasingly finding more and more microplastics in the human body, in everything from our hearts and livers to human brains and testicles.
“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 in a press release about the lawsuit.
“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 continued. “ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health.”
“Today’s lawsuit shows the fullest picture to date of ExxonMobil’s decades-long deception, and we are asking the court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastics pollution crisis through its campaign of deception.”
ExxonMobil didn’t respond to questions emailed on Monday. Gizmodo will update this post if we hear back.
