State of California files lawsuit against Houston-based Exxon

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports the state of California filed a lawsuit Monday against Houston-based oil giant ExxonMobil alleging the company engaged in a decades-long strategy to deceive consumers about the proliferation of plastic-based materials, according to a news release. California Attorney General Rob Bonta accused Exxon of lying to consumers about the effectiveness of recycling plastics. Exxon, Bonta said, led consumers to believe recycling would stem the tide of plastics pollution while doing nothing to limit its production. Bonta said he is seeking to hold Exxon, which is California’s largest producer of polymer-based materials, financially accountable for the ongoing pollution crisis. “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 the release. “ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health.”

The company recently began touting a new disposal technique called advanced recycling, Banta said. Advanced recycling, a process which uses heat to break down plastic waste, is nowhere near as effective as Exxon claims, Banta said. Among other concerns, the process cannot handle large amounts of waste and would ultimately only offset plastic waste by 1% of the company’s current output, according to the release. A spokesperson for Exxon, however, said California’s recycling infrastructure was the problem, not advanced recycling. “For decades, California officials have known their recycling system isn’t effective. They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others,” the spokesperson said. “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.”