California and several environmental groups sued Exxon Mobil on Monday, accusing the oil giant of running a decades-long campaign that fueled global plastic waste pollution. During Climate Week in New York City, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit after completing a nearly two-year investigation, which he said revealed Exxon deliberately misled the public about the limitations of recycling.
This investigation aligns with California’s previous probes into the oil industry’s alleged efforts to deceive the public about climate change, which the state is also pursuing in court. The new lawsuit was filed in San Francisco state court, and a coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, filed a related suit raising similar allegations against Exxon.
Bonta said his office specifically focused on Exxon’s promotion of its “advanced recycling” technology, which involves a process called pyrolysis to convert hard-to-recycle plastic into fuel. He argued that the technology’s slow progress reflects Exxon’s ongoing deception.
“Today’s lawsuit presents the most comprehensive evidence yet of ExxonMobil’s decades-long deception. We are asking the court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and worsening the plastics pollution crisis through its misleading campaign,” Bonta stated. He aims to end the company’s “deceptive practices” and seeks an abatement fund and civil penalties for the damage caused by plastic pollution in California.
Exxon pushed back against the lawsuit, defending advanced recycling as a viable solution. “Suing people makes headlines but doesn’t solve the plastic waste problem. Advanced recycling is a real solution,” a spokesperson for ExxonMobil said, adding that California has done “nothing to ‘advance’ recycling.”
Exxon is the world’s largest producer of resins used in single-use plastics, according to a report from the Minderoo Foundation, with research from Wood Mackenzie and the Carbon Trust.
California’s lawsuit comes ahead of global plastic treaty negotiations set to take place in Busan, South Korea, later this year. Countries remain divided over whether the treaty should impose caps on plastic production, a stance opposed by Exxon and the petrochemical industry. Last month, the U.S. government expressed support for a treaty focused on cutting global plastic production.
Environmental groups welcomed the lawsuit. Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, praised California’s efforts, stating the lawsuit will “hold industry accountable and debunk the plastics recycling narrative that holds us back from real solutions.”
