California Claims Plastic Recycling System Is Ineffective
California has filed a landmark lawsuit against ExxonMobil, accusing the oil and petrochemical giant of misleading the public about the effectiveness of plastic recycling for decades, the Washington Post reports.
The lawsuit, announced by California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday, alleges that ExxonMobil played a key role in creating the plastic pollution crisis by promoting the idea that plastic can be easily recycled, which the state claims is largely untrue.
The lawsuit, the first of its kind, seeks to hold ExxonMobil accountable for what it describes as a “decades-long campaign of deception.” Since at least 1988, the state claims, the company has heavily marketed plastic recycling, convincing consumers that their plastic waste was being reused. In reality, according to California’s claims, only a small fraction of plastic is actually recycled—about 5 to 6 percent in the US, with global recycling rates hovering around 9 percent. Most plastic waste ends up in landfills, incinerated, or in the environment, including oceans and rivers.
At the heart of the issue is the complexity of recycling plastic. While certain types of plastic bottles and containers can be processed, the vast majority of single-use plastics are too varied in color, chemical makeup, and resin types to be recycled effectively. For example, a green soda bottle and a clear ketchup bottle, both made from plastic, cannot be recycled together because of differences in their materials. This diversity makes large-scale plastic recycling extremely difficult and costly.
Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official, commented that most plastics are not recyclable, and that companies like ExxonMobil have been aware of this fact for years.
In response to the lawsuit, ExxonMobil acknowledged the problems with recycling but shifted the blame to California, stating that the state’s recycling system is broken. The company also pointed to efforts it claims have kept over 60 million pounds of plastic waste out of landfills through chemical recycling, though the lawsuit argues that nearly all of this plastic has been turned into fuel rather than new plastic products.
Facing growing criticism, the plastics industry has launched initiatives to restore public confidence in recycling. The Plastics Industry Association introduced a $1 million campaign titled “Recycling is Real” to promote the benefits of plastic recycling to lawmakers and brands. Additionally, some industry groups support chemical recycling, which breaks down plastic into its molecular components to create new plastic. However, California’s lawsuit contends that ExxonMobil has overstated the effectiveness of this process.
ExxonMobil is not the first company to face legal scrutiny over plastic recycling claims. Other lawsuits have targeted companies like PepsiCo and Keurig Dr Pepper for allegedly misleading the public about the recyclability of their packaging. But California’s lawsuit is unique in that it directly challenges the world’s largest producer of plastic resins and links the plastic pollution crisis to decades of misleading advertising.
The lawsuit relies on several legal avenues, including claims that ExxonMobil’s actions violated California’s public nuisance, water pollution, and false advertising laws. However, experts say proving public nuisance—central to the state’s case—could be challenging. Environmental law professor Bruce Huber from Notre Dame Law School noted that plastics don’t neatly fit into the traditional legal framework for nuisances, which usually involves direct, trackable harm.
Despite these hurdles, some are optimistic. Enck, for one, believes that California’s efforts to hold ExxonMobil accountable could yield billions of dollars in damages, which the state could use to support public education and develop new recycling technologies. California could also promote refill and reuse programs to reduce plastic consumption, such as providing funding for public schools and hospitals to move away from single-use plastics.
