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ExxonMobil, the world’s second-largest oil and gas company, is also the world’s largest producer of polymers, which are the fossil fuel-based materials that make single-use plastic. Over the past four decades, there have been more than twenty-six million pounds of garbage collected from California’s beaches and waterways. Disturbingly, over eighty percent of this waste is plastic that can be traced to ExxonMobil’s polymer resins. In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, the state of California is now holding the oil tycoon accountable for its role in creating the plastic waste crisis in the Golden State.

Exxon’s Recycling Campaigns

For the last thirty-five years, ExxonMobil has promoted recycling as a key solution to plastic pollution. When plastic is thrown away, the vast majority of it is sent to a landfill, with some being incinerated or dumped into the environment. Only about nine percent of the world’s plastic is recycled, however, in the United States, this number is even lower, dropping to around five to six percent. Meanwhile, plastic production has doubled in the past twenty years, increasing global oil demand. As a result, ExxonMobil has used recycling as a crutch to justify its mass production and profits.

The Department of Justice constructed a two-year investigation that uncovered the role of fossil fuel and petrochemical companies in perpetuating the plastic waste crisis. California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, subpoenaed Exxon. Bonta was seeking information to prove that the company has a history of limiting the public’s understanding of the harmful consequences of plastic.

One of the more prominent examples of Exxon’s deception was its investment in promoting advanced recycling, also known as chemical recycling. This newer method targets types of plastics that average recycling facilities do not accept. Advanced recycling supposedly repurposes this plastic and transforms it into new products that can be recycled again. Yet, the technology used for it has remained flawed for several decades. Not only that, but the process releases harmful chemicals into the environment that can harm entire ecosystems.

Through Bonta’s subpoena, it was discovered that Exxon Mobil spent $19.4 million between 2020 and 2023 funding an ad campaign promoting chemical recycling. These ads falsely claimed that advanced recycling could “keep our food fresher, our families safer, and our planet cleaner,” a deceiving portrayal of the recycling method. What may be even more concerning is that petrochemical companies are in support of chemical recycling, and are pushing to pass state laws that would reclassify chemical recycling facilities as manufacturing rather than waste facilities. This would reduce regulation of the plants and allow companies to get away with producing more pollutants.

Despite these issues, Exxon continues to insist that chemical recycling is a legitimate process, saying, “We’re bringing real solutions, recycling plastic waste that couldn’t be recycled by traditional methods”.

California’s Lawsuit

On September 23, a lawsuit was filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court, calling on ExxonMobil “to end its deceptive practices that threaten the environment and the public,” according to the legal statement. Bonta also hopes the court will require ExxonMobil to pay civil penalties for the harm it has inflicted with plastic pollution in California.

“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. ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health,” Bonta said. Judith Enck, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, added, “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”.

ExxonMobil has responded by claiming California’s ineffective recycling system is to blame, saying, “They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills.”

Recap

California is setting an impactful precedent by holding one of the world’s largest oil companies accountable for its role in creating plastic waste that is contributing to the ever-worsening climate crisis. Through a subpoena brought on by the state’s attorney general, evidence revealing decades of misleading campaigns promoting recycling and the more controversial advanced recycling was uncovered. Exxon continues to stand by its recycling endorsement, blaming California’s recycling systems for any exacerbated levels of plastic waste. While the lawsuit has yet to advance to trial, California hopes that the court will require Exxon to pay damages.

References

CNN

LA Times

Beyond Plastics