Guest post by Nick Pope
California is suing ExxonMobil, accusing the company of deceiving the public about the effectiveness of recycling plastic products and contributing to pollution.
California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil in San Francisco County Superior Court, claiming the company engaged in a “decades-long campaign of deceit that caused and exacerbated the global plastic pollution crisis.” . In addition to being one of the largest players in the U.S. oil and gas industry, Exxon Mobil is also a top producer of chemicals and other inputs used to make plastic products, according to the Washington Post.
Download the lawsuit in PDF format
“For decades, ExxonMobil has deceived the public into believing that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis, when they clearly knew it was impossible,” Bonta said of his lawsuit in a statement on Monday. Shi said. “ExxonMobil lied to further expand its [record]- destroying profits at the expense of our planet and potentially harming our health.
California filed a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil just one day after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law banning plastic bags at store points of sale. The new lawsuit against the oil, gas and petrochemical giant is in line with “climate nuisance” lawsuits filed in Democratic-controlled jurisdictions in recent years, which generally accuse major companies such as Exxon Mobil of playing a role in the role of their products in climate change. misleading the public about its role and should be held responsible for this.
ExxonMobil slammed California's lawsuit in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“California officials have known for decades that their recycling system is ineffective. Instead of taking action, they are now looking to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills. ,” said an ExxonMobil spokesman. “The first step is recognizing what our American counterparts know: advanced recycling efforts. To date, we have processed more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into usable feedstock, keeping it out of landfills. We are bringing real solutions , to recycle plastic waste that cannot be recycled by traditional methods.
Bonta is rumored to be interested in running for governor in 2026 to replace the term-limited Newsom, though the attorney general recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that he won't announce his candidacy until after the November election. The attorney general's office said ecological activist groups, including the Sierra Club and Baykeeper, will participate in a virtual press conference held by Bonta's office on Monday to discuss the new lawsuit.
Judith Enck, a former Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official who now runs an activist group called Beyond Plastics, applauded Bonta for filing the lawsuit.
“This is the most significant lawsuit ever filed against the plastics industry for its continued lies about plastic recycling,” Enke said in a statement Monday. “Attorney General Bonta is leading the charge on corporate accountability and a cleaner, more sustainable world.” A Healthier World. This lawsuit will set a valuable precedent for other lawsuits.
Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy and Environmental Law Institute, blasted the lawsuit in a post to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) on Monday.
“California's communist failure is suing ExxonMobil because the Radical Greens lied to everyone about the feasibility of recycling,” Milloy wrote in his post.
Bonta's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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