California Sues ExxonMobil Over Alleged Plastic Recycling Deception

A view of the ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown, Texas, on Sept. 15, 2008. Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters

California’s attorney general on Sept. 23 sued ExxonMobil, alleging the company misled consumers about plastic recycling.

ExxonMobil has promoted plastics, which are primarily made from gas and oil, in part by telling the public that plastic can be recycled, even while executives knew that many kinds of plastic are not recyclable, according to the lawsuit.

“ExxonMobil’s deceptive statements were designed to mislead consumers and the public—including the state, its businesses, and its residents—about the serious adverse consequences that would foreseeably result from continued and increased production of plastic products,” Attorney General Rob Bonta and other officials said in the suit, which was filed in the California Superior Court in San Francisco.

“ExxonMobil’s deceptions undermined consumers’ ability to make informed choices to avoid the catastrophic harms we are experiencing,” including plastic building up in oceans, the state officials added.

ExxonMobil has promoted what it calls advanced recycling, which refers to using heat to break down used plastic. Its advanced recycling facility in Baytown, Texas, “is taking difficult to recycle plastics, plastics that would otherwise end up in a landfill or incineration, and we are putting them into this unit producing high quality raw materials that can then be used to make new plastic products,” the company has said.

According to the filing, most of the plastic processed through the program is allegedly turned into fuel, not new plastic products, which, the filing stated, makes ExxonMobil’s claims about its advanced recycling deceptive.

Officials also alleged ExxonMobil has concealed how advanced recycling is not profitable, undercutting other statements from the company.

“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 said in a statement.

Officials are requesting that the court order ExxonMobil to stop making “deceptive public statements” about plastics, including a halt to using the term “advanced recycling,” civil penalties based on violations of state law, and an order mandating ExxonMobil remove materials from state waters.

A spokesperson for ExxonMobil, which is headquartered in Texas, told The Epoch Times in an email that California officials should work with the company to fix what it says is an ineffective state recycling system.

“The first step would be to acknowledge what their counterparts across the U.S. know: advanced recycling works. To date, we’ve processed more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into usable raw materials, keeping it out of landfills,” the spokesperson said. “We’re bringing real solutions, recycling plastic waste that couldn’t be recycled by traditional methods.”