Guest essay by Nick Pope Contributor
The state of California is suing ExxonMobil, saying the company misled the public about the effectiveness of recycling plastic products and facilitated pollution.
Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil in San Francisco County Superior Court, alleging that the company participated “in a decades-long campaign of fraud that caused and exacerbated the global plastic pollution crisis.” In addition to being one of the largest American players in the oil and gas industry, ExxonMobil is also the top producer of chemicals and other inputs used to make plastic products, according to The Washington Post.
Download the lawsuit as a PDF
“For decades, ExxonMobil has deceived the public in order to convince them that plastic recycling can solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they know that this is impossible,” Bonta said of his claim in a statement on Monday. “ExxonMobil is lying to increase (record) profits at the expense of our planet and possibly endangering our health.”
California filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil just a day after Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law that would ban the provision of plastic bags at the point of sale in stores. The new lawsuits against oil, gas and petrochemical giants are in line with a string of “climate interference” lawsuits that have been filed in Democratic-controlled jurisdictions in recent years, most of which say big companies like ExxonMobil are misleading the public about the role of their products in climate change. and must be responsible for doing so.
ExxonMobil dismissed the California lawsuit in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“California officials have known for decades that their recycling system is ineffective. They failed to act, and now they’re looking to blame others. Instead of suing us, they can work with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills,” said an ExxonMobil spokesperson. “The first step is to recognize what our partners in the US know: recycling works well. To date, we have processed more than 60 million kilograms of plastic waste into usable raw materials, so that they do not end up in landfills. We bring real solutions, recycling plastic waste that cannot be recycled in traditional ways.
Bonta is reportedly interested in running for governor to replace Newsom who is term-limited in 2026, although the attorney general recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that he would not announce a candidate until the November election. Eco-activist groups, including the Sierra Club and Baykeeper, will participate in a virtual press conference Monday hosted by Bonta’s office to discuss the new lawsuit, the attorney general’s office said.
Judith Enck, a former official for Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who now runs an activist group called Beyond Plastics, praised Bonta for filing the lawsuit.
“This is the most important lawsuit ever filed against the plastics industry for its persistent lies about plastic recycling,” Enck said in a statement Monday. “Attorney General Bonta is aiming for corporate accountability and a cleaner, healthier world. This lawsuit will set a precedent that cannot be followed by others.
Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy and Environmental Law Institute, slammed the lawsuit in a Monday post to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Communist failure is California suing ExxonMobil because radical greens lied to everyone about the possibility of recycling,” Milloy wrote in his post.
Bonta’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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