SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
recycling
California Sues Exxon Over Decades of Plastics Deception in First-of-Its-Kind Lawsuit
"This is the single most consequential lawsuit filed against the plastics industry for its persistent and continued lying about plastics recycling."
Sep 23, 2024
In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday sued oil giant ExxonMobil for allegedly deceiving the public about the recyclability of plastics so as to continue increasing production.
The 147-page lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, came following a yearslong investigation that environmental groups were hoping would lead to legal action. They widely celebrated Bonta's move.
"This is the single most consequential lawsuit filed against the plastics industry for its persistent and continued lying about plastics recycling," Judith Enck, founder of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics and a former senior Environmental Protection Agency official, said in a statement.
"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," she added.
Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), echoed Enck's take.
"Big Oil and the plastic industry's lies are the beating heart of the plastic waste crisis, which makes California's groundbreaking lawsuit against ExxonMobil the most important legal action to date in the global fight against plastic pollution," Wiles said in a statement.
#BREAKING: We’re suing ExxonMobil for a decades-long campaign of deception that perpetuated the plastic waste and pollution crisis.
ExxonMobil peddled #RecyclingLies to further its recording-breaking profits at the expense of our planet.
We’re holding ExxonMobil accountable. pic.twitter.com/ekhMGY3AOE
— Rob Bonta (@AGRobBonta) September 23, 2024
Plastics are made from fossil fuels, and ExxonMobil, the largest U.S.-based oil and gas producer, makes polymers that are turned into single-use plastics. Virgin plastic production has skyrocketed globally in recent decades, even as research has shown the damaging environmental and health impacts it has across its life cycle.
The petrochemical industry has long promoted recycling as a solution to plastics pollution. ExxonMobil, for example, placed a 12-page "advertorial" in Time in 1989 titled "The Urgent Need to Recycle," Bonta's office said in a statement. ExxonMobil and other companies also helped push the use of the "chasing arrows" symbol, which gives the often false impression that a product is recyclable when it's not, or unlikely to be in most areas.
Plastics recycling comes with enormous technical and economic constraints that the industry has understood—and hid—for decades, critics say. A 68-page CCI report released in February laid out the evidence against the industry, including, for example, a 1986 trade group report stating that "recycling cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution [to plastics], as it merely prolongs the time until an item is disposed of."
Estimates indicate that plastics recycling rates are far lower than the public realizes, at just 6% in the U.S. and 9% worldwide. A recent poll by CCI and Data for Progress found that U.S. voters, on average, thought the rate was 45%.
The same poll found that most U.S. voters, when prompted with information about the industry's history, supported their state taking legal action for recycling deception, as California has now done.
The lawsuit from Bonta, a Democrat who's held office since 2021, represents a "new front in the legal battles against oil and gas companies over climate and environmental issues," according toThe New York Times.
Dozens of U.S. cities and states, including California, have already filed lawsuits against Big Oil companies for their role in the perpetuating climate breakdown, but this is the most significant plastics lawsuit, observers say. New York did sue PepsiCo last year for its role in polluting the Hudson River with plastics.
Wiles of CCI drew a parallel between the newly announced suit and the dozens of climate suits that had preceded it, saying they both target the same types of lies.
"From climate to plastics, Exxon's entire business model is based on lying to the public about the harms its products cause," he said.
In recent years, the petrochemical industry has touted "advanced recycling," sometimes called "chemical recycling," in which plastic waste is broken down into virgin-like new material. However, the statement from Bonta's office argues that there are severe limitations to the technology and says that ExxonMobil's advanced recycling program is "nothing more than a public relations stunt meant to encourage the public to keep purchasing single-use plastics that are fueling the plastics pollution crisis."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most US Voters Want Plastics Industry Held Accountable for Recycling Deception: Poll
"No one is really OK with a corporation lying to consumers. What jumps out here is the overwhelming agreement among voters that it's deceptive and wrong for companies to label a product as recyclable when it's not."
Sep 09, 2024
Most U.S. voters would support officials in their state taking legal action against the plastics and fossil fuel industries for creating plastic pollution, based on evidence that they misled the public about the viability of recycling their products, according to a poll released Monday.
The poll, conducted by Data for Progress and the Center for Climate Integrity, follows a report CCI released in February that showed decades of industry deception about the recyclability of plastics and a yearslong, ongoing investigation by the California attorney general, which could lead to a lawsuit.
The poll indicates that 70% of voters support such a lawsuit and even 54% of Republicans do so.
"Regardless of your politics, no one is really OK with a corporation lying to consumers," Davis Allen, a CCI researcher, said in a statement. "What jumps out here is the overwhelming agreement among voters that it's deceptive and wrong for companies to label a product as recyclable when it's not."
Allen's colleague Alyssa Johl, a CCI vice president, argued that the poll bolsters the case that attorneys general should pursue lawsuits against industry for its role in creating plastic waste and deceiving the public about recycling.
"As we're watching to see what comes from California's investigation, it's clear that the public is very concerned about the plastic waste crisis and would support holding Big Oil and the plastics industry accountable for the fraud of plastic recycling," she said. "Any attorney general or public official who is considering action on this issue should know that both the law and public opinion are on their side."
📣 New poll from us & @DataProgress:
The vast majority of U.S. voters — including 54% of Republicans — support legal action against Big Oil & the plastics industry for lying about the viability of plastic recycling and causing the plastic waste crisis. https://t.co/YFjmxzeOYT pic.twitter.com/0oHAMHPtem
— Center for Climate Integrity (@climatecosts) September 9, 2024
The survey, conducted on 1,231 web panel respondents, also included a number of other plastics-related questions. More than two-thirds of respondents, after being prompted with information during the course of the survey, said the plastics industry should have "a great deal of responsibility" to address the plastic crisis, while 59% said the same about the fossil fuel industry. The industries are in fact connected; almost all plastics are made out of fossil fuels.
More than 60% of respondents strongly agreed—and 85% agreed at least "somewhat"—that it was deceptive to put the "chasing arrows" symbol on products that were not in fact recyclable. California restricted the practice with a 2021 law, and the Federal Trade Commission is revising its guidelines following recommendations issued last year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which said the use of the symbol can be "deceptive or misleading."
The poll showed that Americans tend to overestimate the amount of plastic being recycled. The average respondent guessed that about 45% of plastic gets recycled, when in fact a 2021 Greenpeace report indicated that the real figure is about 6%.
Despite the negative impacts of plastic waste, plastic production continues to increase worldwide. About 220 million tons of plastic waste are expected to be generated this year alone. Last week, a study in Nature, a leading journal, estimated global plastic waste emissions at about 52 million metric tons per year.
Recycling plastic is logistically challenging because many products are made of composites of different types of plastic and because the quality of the material goes down with each generation of use.
The poll comes out during the final stages of negotiations on a global plastics treaty, which has been in the works for several years. Ahead of United Nations General Assembly meetings this week, a group of celebrities including Bette Midler called for strong action on plastics in an open letter published by Greenpeace.
The final global plastics treaty negotiations will be held in Busan, South Korea starting November 25. The previous major round of negotiations, in April, was dominated by corporate lobbyists, advocates said. Activists and Indigenous leaders were also left out of a smaller meeting in Thailand last month, drawing criticism.
The call for accountability for plastics producers comes as the fossil fuel industry already faces legal action for its role in perpetuating the climate crisis. Dozens of cities and states have filed suits. None has yet reached the trial stage. The one that is closest to doing so, City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco et al., has been the subject of political and legal wrangling, with the industry trying to have the suit dismissed.
Keep ReadingShow Less
How Changing Your Daily Coffee Habits Can Make a Difference This Plastic-Free July
Join the global social movement helping millions of people around the world reduce their plastic waste by choosing to refuse single-use items like disposable cups.
Jul 25, 2024
Whether you’re reading this article at home, work, or on the go, there’s a good chance you’re one of the billions of people worldwide who will the enjoy the pleasure of having someone else make your coffee today. To say we are a society powered by coffee is not an overstatement. An estimated 500 billion disposable coffee cups are produced globally each year.
That our takeaway coffee habit served in a disposable cup has become one of the number one single-use items we throw away says a lot about our culture and choices. Originally made from Styrofoam and other petroleum-based plastics, single-use cups are increasingly made from paper but lined with a thin layer of plastic to prevent the liquid seeping out and served with a plastic lid. Unfortunately, even these paper cups are not readily recycled, most are landfilled and some are littered, breaking up into microplastics that cause lasting harm to wildlife and marine ecosystems. Without systems to collect and process even paper-based packaging, they aren’t a sustainable solution either.
This July millions of people around the world are making different choices from drinking their coffee in disposable cups, and many more choices besides! Together, these choices are adding up to make a big difference. This month it’s Plastic-Free July, the global social movement helping millions of people around the world reduce their plastic waste by choosing to refuse single-use plastic.
After all this isn’t really a problem we are leaving behind. Much of this single-use plastic will outlive us all. It is a problem we are leaving forward.
Despite the name, this campaign isn’t about being completely plastic free. It is about making small changes, simply choosing to refuse the single-use plastics we find in our daily lives. Whether that’s taking a reusable cup for a takeaway coffee (or dining in), remembering reusable shopping bags or water bottles, choosing loose produce, or skipping the plastic straw, small steps do make a big difference.
From 40 people in Perth Australia who joined me when I started Plastic-Free July in 2011, now hundreds of millions of people from over 190 countries have taken part in our global social movement by choosing to refuse single-use plastic. We know that people don’t just make change in July—our research shows 87% of participants make changes that become habits and a way of life. Over the last five years, Plastic-Free July participants have together avoided 10 billion kilograms of household waste, more than the world’s biggest cleanups combined!
From schools in Nepal to California, community groups in Kenya to New Zealand, and companies like NASA and Harrods, people are taking action. Cafes, councils, NGOs, and even the State of New York have embraced reuse and refill schemes, changed packaging, and shifted to plastic-free options.
It has become increasingly clear that we can’t recycle our way out of the plastic pollution problem. Plastic waste is projected to double and plastic pollution in the ocean will almost triple by 2040. Despite our best efforts, we have only managed to recycle 9% of all the plastic ever made. That is why we advocate for reducing plastic at the source, turning off the “plastics tap.” By using less (through refusing, reducing, and reusing) we are also decreasing the resources required to make new products, from extraction of natural resources (whether that’s the fossil fuels used to make plastic or the harvesting of trees required for paper-based packaging) to the resources required for manufacture, transport, and disposal.
Studies show taking action to reduce waste can also increases well-being and community connections. It turns out that being mindful of our consumption and taking steps for a cleaner environment—such as sitting for a few minutes to smell and enjoy our coffee made from beans grown in Brazil or Columbia and carefully brewed by a barista rather than scrolling through our phones while we wait and then juggling a cup as we rush to the next thing—can also be good for us. On my walk this morning as I saw people with their takeaway coffees, I couldn’t help wondering how carrying around this special beverage in a piece of landfill has become normal?
As I’ve worked on the plastic problem over the last 14 years, I’ve seen how change that happens at an individual and community level can make a difference. Actions can speak louder than words as behaviours spread and change culture, and go on to influence business and governments. In November 2024, United Nations member states will gather in Busan, South Korea for the final round of negotiations on an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.
In the face of the scale and complexity of this problem, changing our coffee habits by switching to reusables is a very small step, but all change has to start somewhere and we can all make small changes. Together we could reduce the 500 billion single-use cups we are leaving in landfills or littering every year and reconsider our wasteful habits. Not sure how to get started? Why not join thousands of people this year making a Plastic-Free Pledge and sharing it online with colleagues friends and family. Simply download a pledge card, take a photo, and share online—this will help inspire others to make a difference too.
After all this isn’t really a problem we are leaving behind. Much of this single-use plastic will outlive us all. It is a problem we are leaving forward. Facing our consumption is an uncomfortable truth, but unless we act now, the buildup of plastic pollution will be increasingly uncomfortable for future generations.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular