Attorney General Bonta Sues ExxonMobil for Deceiving the Public on Recyclability of Plastic Products

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SAN FRANCISCO — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today announced the filing of a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for allegedly engaging in a decades-long campaign of deception that caused and exacerbated the global plastics pollution crisis. In a complaint filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court, the Department of Justice alleges that ExxonMobil has been deceiving Californians for half a century through misleading public statements and slick marketing promising that recycling would address the ever-increasing amount of plastic waste ExxonMobil produces. Through this lawsuit, the Attorney General seeks to compel ExxonMobil, which promotes and produces the largest amount of polymers—essentially the building blocks used to make single-use plastic—that become plastic waste in California, to end its deceptive practices that threaten the environment and the public. Attorney General Bonta also seeks to secure an abatement fund, disgorgement, and civil penalties for the harm inflicted by plastics pollution upon California’s communities and the environment.

“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,” said Attorney General Bonta. “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. 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’s Deceptive Marketing

ExxonMobil is the world’s largest producer of polymers used to make single-use plastics. These materials are produced by ExxonMobil from fossil fuels and are then molded (by other companies) into single-use plastic. For decades, ExxonMobil, one of the most powerful companies in the world, 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. This caused consumers to purchase and use more single-use plastic than they otherwise would have due to the company’s misleading public statements and advertising. For instance, through a trade group launched to promote recycling as an alternative to reducing plastics consumption, ExxonMobil placed a 12-page editorial-style advertisement in a July 1989 edition of Time magazine titled “The URGENT NEED TO RECYCLE.” This “advertorial” highlighted recycling as a smart solution for plastic waste and efforts to further recycling and recycling technology. Since 1970, ExxonMobil, through this trade association, also adapted and promoted the chasing arrows symbol for plastics. This symbol is now strongly associated with recycling and consumers are led to believe that items with the symbol can and will be recycled when placed in the recycling stream. In reality, only about 5 percent of U.S. plastic waste is recycled, and the recycling rate has never exceeded 9 percent. 

More recently, ExxonMobil continues to deceive the public by touting “advanced recycling”  as the solution to the plastic waste and pollution crisis. “Advanced recycling” (also known as “chemical recycling”) is an umbrella term used by the plastics industry to describe a variety of heat or solvent-based technologies that can theoretically convert certain types of plastic waste into petrochemical feedstock, which can be used to make new plastic. Under its “advanced recycling” program, ExxonMobil uses heat to break down plastic waste. ExxonMobil promotes its “advanced recycling” program as a breakthrough in technology that will make plastics sustainable but hides important truths about its technical limitations, including that: 

• The vast majority—92 percent—of plastic waste processed through ExxonMobil’s “advanced recycling” technology does not become recycled plastic, but rather primarily fuels,
• The plastics that are produced through ExxonMobil’s “advanced recycling” process contain so little plastic waste that they are effectively virgin plastics deceptively marketed as “circular” (co-opting a term typically understood as a full circle of sustainable reuse, where waste becomes raw material) and sold at a premium,
• ExxonMobil’s “advanced recycling” process cannot handle large amounts of post-consumer plastic waste such as potato chip bags without risking the safety and performance of its equipment,
• Plastics produced through ExxonMobil’s “advanced recycling” program, in ExxonMobil’s best case scenario, will only account for less than one percent of ExxonMobil’s total virgin plastic production capacity, which continues to grow.

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.

ExxonMobil produces the largest amount of single-use plastic that becomes plastic waste. Since 1985, more than 26 million pounds of trash has been collected from California beaches and waterways, approximately 81 percent of which is plastic. Most of the plastic items collected on the annual California Coastal Cleanup Day can be traced to ExxonMobil’s polymer resins.

Threats Posed by Plastic to the Environment and California Communities

The global plastics waste and pollution crisis has been driven by the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries. Around the world each year, an estimated 12.1 million tons of plastic waste become aquatic pollution, and 19.8 million tons are polluted to land. Together, that is the equivalent of 4 garbage trucks of plastic waste polluted in the water or land every minute.

Single-use plastics—plastic packaging, bags, straws, disposable plasticware and utensils, and other products that are typically used once, then disposed—comprise most of the plastic waste that escapes into the environment. Plastic does not biodegrade, instead breaking down into smaller pieces called microplastics. Microplastics have been found in drinking water, food, and even the air people breathe. More recently, microplastics have been found inside the human body: in our lungs, blood, and in breast milk. 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. 

California Department of Justice Legal Claims

On April 28, 2022, the Attorney General launched his investigation into fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for their role in causing the global plastics waste and pollution crisis. As part of its investigation, the DOJ issued investigative subpoenas to ExxonMobil and related plastics industry groups to seek details about the nature and extent of the company’s deception efforts. The DOJ has actively been conducting the investigation into the petrochemical industry for the past two years, including subpoenas that uncovered never-before-seen documents, culminating in today’s lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that ExxonMobil has misled consumers and continues to do so by engaging in an aggressive campaign to deceive the public and perpetuate the myth that recycling will solve the crisis of plastic pollution. For decades, ExxonMobil has dumped the cleanup and environmental costs of its deception and plastic production onto the public, and Californians are paying the price.

The lawsuit alleges that ExxonMobil’s decades-long campaign of deception violated state nuisance, natural resources, water pollution, false advertisement, and unfair competition laws. The Attorney General is seeking nuisance abatement, disgorgement (which would require the defendants to give up the profits gained through their illegal conduct), and civil penalties; and injunctive relief to both protect California’s natural resources from further pollution, impairment, and destruction, as well as to prevent ExxonMobil from making any further false or misleading statements about plastics recycling and its plastics operations. 

Joining today’s virtual press conference are Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation, Heal the Bay, and Baykeeper, who have separately filed their own lawsuit raising similar issues regarding ExxonMobil’s role in causing the global plastics pollution crisis. 

A copy of the Attorney General’s complaint can be found here.