Beyond Plastics Praises California Attorney General for ‘Single Most Consequential Lawsuit Filed Against the Plastics Industry’
ExxonMobil Sued for Its Lies About Plastics Recycling and Chemical Recycling, and for Pollution in California
For Immediate Release: September 23, 2024
Contacts:
Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics — judithenck@bennington.edu, (518) 605-1770
Melissa Valliant, Beyond Plastics — melissavalliant@bennington.edu, (410) 829-0726
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for the statewide harm caused by its plastic waste and for misleading the public about plastic recycling’s ability to manage the problem. ExxonMobil, according to the attorney general’s office, promotes and produces the largest amount of polymers — the building blocks of single-use plastic — that become plastic waste in California.
“This is the single most consequential lawsuit filed against the plastics industry for its persistent and continued lying about plastics recycling,” said Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics president and former EPA regional administrator. “The plastics industry has known for decades that — unlike paper and glass and metal — plastics are not designed to be recycled and therefore do not achieve a high recycling rate. Yet, the industry made every effort to convince the public otherwise while profiting off the planetary crisis it created. Attorney General Bonta is leading the way to corporate accountability and a cleaner and healthier world. This lawsuit will set an invaluable precedent for others to follow.”
The legal filing and statement from the attorney general can be found here.
Bonta’s office spent years reviewing confidential ExxonMobil communications and public scientific research. The lawsuit not only covers the long historical fraud of traditional plastic recycling but also breaks new ground by exposing ExxonMobil’s highly touted “advanced recycling” process as a technically and economically impossible scheme. It consists of using a high-heat pyrolysis method to melt plastic waste into an oil mixture and gas mixture (containing ethane). The small ethane stream is then fed to a facility called an ethane steam cracker with an overall yield of only 8% of plastic waste becoming new plastic. The majority of the plastic waste is turned mostly into fuel that will later be burned. The scheme uses existing equipment at ExxonMobil’s massive Baytown, Texas, petroleum refinery, which processes millions of tons of new fuel every year into mostly fuel and other products, including plastics. The actual recycled content of the new plastic produced at ExxonMobil Baytown is 0.09%, not the 100% that ExxonMobil claims in the sales of circularity certificates.
The lawsuit details how ExxonMobil and its front groups have promoted the false solution called “advanced recycling.” According to the lawsuit, this included a variety of deceptive tactics and a range of repeated false claims through their own news releases, in testimony to federal and state legislators and agencies, and through a $30 million media campaign.
“‘Advanced,’ or chemical, recycling is nothing more than another industry public relations stunt to distract the public and deter policymakers and regulators from doing the one thing that can realistically curb the plastic pollution crisis: adopt policies that require the reduction of plastic production,” Enck said.
The lawsuit allegations confirm the key findings from Beyond Plastics and IPEN's 2023 chemical recycling report, the Center for Climate Integrity’s 2024 “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling” report, and other investigations and scientific studies. Because of their chemical makeup, plastics are not technically or economically recyclable via any method — including both mechanical recycling and chemical (“advanced”) recycling.
The pyrolysis and steam-cracking process addressed by this lawsuit:
Cannot recycle most mixed household plastic waste;
Cannot produce plastic with more than 1% to 2% recycled content;
Cannot scale up to meaningfully address the plastic pollution crisis; and
Emits more greenhouse gases than plastic production.
CBS News and Inside Climate News recently partnered on an exposé of ExxonMobil’s plan to manage Houston waste via “advanced recycling.” They reported that the hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic waste collected from Houston households over the past 20 months have not been chemically recycled; instead, they’ve been piling up and creating a massive fire hazard.
To view Beyond Plastics’ chemical recycling fact sheet, visit beyondplastics.org/fact-sheets/chemical-recycling
To view the full Beyond Plastics/IPEN chemical recycling report, visit beyondplastics.org/publications/chemical-recycling
Rob Bonta (right) announces lawsuit against ExxonMobil at Climate Week NYC on September 23, 2024
About Beyond Plastics
Launched in 2019, Beyond Plastics is a nationwide project that pairs the wisdom and experience of environmental policy experts with the energy and creativity of grassroots advocates to build a vibrant and effective movement to end plastic pollution. Using deep policy and advocacy expertise, Beyond Plastics is building a well-informed, effective movement seeking to achieve the institutional, economic, and societal changes needed to save our planet and ourselves, from the negative health, climate, and environmental impacts for the production, usage, and disposal of plastics.
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