California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of environmental nonprofits announced two distinct but related lawsuits against Exxon Mobil on Monday — not over the oil giant’s contribution to climate change, but over its role in the plastic pollution crisis.
The attorney general’s lawsuit, filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court, represents the culmination of a two-year investigation into what Bonta has called the petrochemical industry’s “decades-long deception campaign” over the sustainability of plastics and the feasibility of plastics recycling. Drawing on documents subpoenaed from Exxon Mobil and trade groups that it belongs to, the complaint says that Exxon Mobil has known since the 1970s about the technical and economic limitations of plastics recycling but promoted it anyway, using it to justify booming plastic production.
“The company has propped up sham solutions, manipulated the public, and lied to consumers,” Bonta told reporters at a press conference on Monday. “It’s time for Exxon Mobil to pay the price for its deceit.”
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